The Russian republic of Chechnya announced this week it’s banning music that’s too fast or too slow, forbidding anything outside of those parameters to be played in public or on a stage.
“From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” Chechnya’s Culture Ministry said in a statement, according to the Moscow Times.
In a meeting, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov instructed Chechen Culture Minister Musa Dadayev to make Chechen music “conform to the Chechen mentality,” and added that “Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible,” the Moscow Times reported.
This would rule out most Western techno and rave music, as Sky News pointed out. Maybe rave culture is too queer for the deeply conservative government's traditional sensibilities.
Luckily for Chechens, there are other options, and I know them because I’m an extremely slow runner who likes to match pace to music during my jog-walks. 110 BPM techno is often slow and gritty, so techno isn’t completely out.
A lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, like “Scar Tissue” is around 90 BPM—as is “Africa” by TOTO and “What I Got” by Sublime, although 80 to 116 is a little slow for most ska. “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers is also 80 BPM, threatening a stomp-clap revival in Chechnya. These are all perfectly legal!
A ton of buttrock, dadrock, and minivan-rock—that stuff on the radio in the early 2000s—is blessedly around 80 BPM, including “The Reason” by Hoobastank.
Arguably (and feel free to argue) these songs represent a sampling of some of the most American music possible. If you have a favorite song that would be legal in Chechnya, drop it in the comments. I'm gonna go for a run to "Hotel California" now.
