Ladybug (group)

The group was created in the spring of 1988 by composer, arranger and musician Vladimir Volenko . Initially, "Ladybug" was conceived as a group of punk-perestroika trends. In 1989, a test album, “ The Beginning of the Sixth Signal, ” which Volenko himself described as “art punk,” was recorded at Dunes Studios. In the same year, Vladimir Volenko as a keyboard player and guitarist Nikolai Yurov fell into one of the members of the Mirage group, and until the mid -1990s , nothing was heard about the project.

In 1994, after the change of several groups, Volenko revived the group and starred in the program " Star Rain ", performing his version of the pioneer childhood song "Granite Pebble", with plagiarizing the melody of the famous hit of Chris Ri - " Road to Hell ". ^{[1] [2] [3]} In the same year, the self-titled magnetic album was released. The very next year, 1995, the album was released on CD released by Soyuz Studio. In 1996, the Monolith record company released the second album of the group - Fly to Heaven ^[4] , and director Anton Kalinkin shot a video clip in the pseudo-folk style “Berry - Malinka”. Soon after, a video was released for the song “Blue Evening” from the same album. Subsequently, the CD "Fly to Heaven" was almost completely rewritten with different vocals and arrangements ^[5] .

In 1997, Ladybug became one of the projects of the new production company ORT-Records , led by producer Joseph Prigogine . Two more discs of the group were released on the label of this company: “My Queen” (1997) and “Woman of Dreams” (1998).

In 2000, the composition of the group changed radically: Inna Anzorova was replaced by Natalia Poleshchuk . Soon Poleschuk married Volenko and took her husband's surname.

In January 2016, Digital Content released a new album, Give a Girl Money! The album includes 16 tracks recorded over the past few years.

In the fall of 2017, Vladimir Volenko released an album of spiritual and Christian songs entitled “Gospel!”, it included track remasters from the earlier albums “Born Again” (2003) and “Book of Life” (2006), as well as 6 new tracks.

Denis Stupnikov and Alexey Mazhaev wrote negative reviews of the album "Ladybugs" - "Everything is new ... this is a well-revised old" ^[6] . Mazhaev gave the group 2 points out of 5, noting that “although“ Ladybug ”shows the beginnings of self-irony in the name of the disc, the color of the soloist’s hairstyle and the pseudonym of the soloist, the target audience of their new and old work remains unclear. "Vladimir Volenko lacks the taste to compose hits to which the definition of" trash "would not stick, and courage to bring his songs to kitsch . " The offended singer wrote an open letter to Mazhaev, where he accused the critic of incompetence ^{[7] [8] [3]} .

• Vladimir Volenko - vocals , rhythm guitar , solo guitar , keyboards (since 1989).
• Natalya Shokoladkina - vocals , backing vocals , keyboards , accordion (since 2000).
• Oleg Fedotov - drums .
• Nikolay Kanishchev - solo guitar , rhythm guitar

In the period 1988-1989, the place of the soloist in the group was not occupied by Vladimir Volenko, but Stepan Razin , the future producer of Sergei Trofimov and singer Carolina . One of the members of the group until 1995 was Robert Lenz - subsequently the lead singer of the Bravo group.

• 1989 - The Beginning of the Sixth Signal
• 1995 - “Granite Pebble” (“Union”, CD, SZCD0329-95)
• 1996 - Fly to Heaven
• 1997 - My Princess
• 1998 - “Meeting with a beloved woman”
• 2000 - Another Life
• 2003 - “Born Again”
• 2004 - "Legendary Songs"
• 2005 - Grand Collection
• 2006 - The Book of Life
• 2007 - “Wings Behind the Back”
• 2008 - “Everything is new ... it's a well-revised old”
• 2012 - “Everything is new ... it's a well-revised old-2”
• 2016 - “Give the girl money!”
• 2017 - Gospel!

• Official site of the Ladybug group
• Interview with Vladimir Volenko (inaccessible link)