History Music / LeningradCowboys

** Taken to the extreme by the covers of ''Happy Together'' and the ''Total Balalaika Show'' video: These mimick a ''Pravda'' issue with all text except "Pravda" itself written in a pseudo-Cyrillic font (actually partly Latin, partly Cyrillic, partly Greek with a special German character thrown in for good measure).

* BalladOfX: "The Ballad of the Leningrad Cowboy" from the movie and the accompanying soundtrack. It is an actual ballad, a country ballad, to be more precise. And InUniverse, it is [[DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible so bad that the club at which the Cowboys play it is for sale immediately afterwards]].

** [[InUniverse Within the movie canon]], they're even DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible. Best example: They drive the Club Zhivago into closure just by playing one gig there, possibly even only one song.

* BalladOfX: "The Ballad of the Leningrad Cowboy" from the movie and the accompanying soundtrack. It is an actual ballad, a country ballad, to be more precise. And InUniverse, it is [[SoBadItsHorrible so bad that the club at which the Cowboys play it is for sale immediately afterwards]].

* ElvisImpersonator: Singer Mato Valtonen did that around the time when ''Live In Prowinzz'' was recorded.

** They're a bit inconsistent with this: The manager is named Vladimir, one band member is known as Ivan, that half-bald guy who follows them is Igor, and another band member goes by his real Finnish name, namely Pekka.

* FauxDeath[=/=]HumanPopsicle: Pekka Virtanen, bass guitarist and co-writer of the original song material in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'', spends most of the film frozen after having rehearsed half the night out in the cold of the tundra. He is hauled about in a wooden crate roughly resembling a coffin with four holes for the hairdo, the shoes, and the bass stuck in his hand, which is filled with ice cubes to keep him from thawing and eventually rotting. [[spoiler:At the end, he is reanimated with a swig of either vodka or tequila, so he has never been dead in the first place.]]

* TheMovie: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] as ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'' came before anything else. In fact, the band itself was created for the movie.

** No matter how many layers of [[FakeNationality fake nationalities]] the Cowboys have piled up, complete with faking the respective accent, one could always hear that they're Finns.

* BrooklynRage: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica''.

* {{Lzherusskie}}: The band often claimed to be from {{UsefulNotes/Russia}} which also explains the name. This was particularly supported by ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'' which featured the Finnish actor Matti Pellonpää as their obviously Russian manager Vladimir.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: No matter how many layers of [[FakeNationality fake nationalities]] the Cowboys have piled up, complete with faking the respective accent, one could always hear that they're Finns.

* {{Defictionalization}}: The Leningrad Cowboys were created for ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' pretty much by retooling and expanding the Finnish punk band Sleepy Sleepers into a horn-heavy folk band from the tundra that tries to make it big in America. Although having been created for the film, they have remained the Leningrad Cowboys ever since.

* FakeNationality: Taken to the extreme in the Cowboys' early years. They seemed to be Russians trying to convince their audience that they're Americans, but they're actually Finns.

->''"[[BlatantLies Sure, all American boys]]! But their name is Leningrad Cowboys. Да—I mean, yes."''

* SoBadItsGood: [[InvokedTrope According to their early self-description]], they are (or at least were) "the worst rock & roll band in the world", and they played that part pretty well on stage. At the same time, they were celebrated by their fans.

The Leningrad Cowboys are a novelty classic rock / oompah band from Finland, who famously appeared in Creator/AkiKaurismäki's ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' playing themselves on a disastrous ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap'' style tour of America after the fall of the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Berlin Wall]].

The Leningrad Cowboys are a novelty classic rock / oompah band from Finland, who famously appeared in Aki Kaurismäki's ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' playing themselves on a disastrous ''Film/ThisIsSpinalTap'' style tour of America after the fall of the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Berlin Wall]].

The Leningrad Cowboys are a novelty classic rock / oompah band from Finland, who famously appeared in Aki Kaurismäki's ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' playing themselves on a disastrous ''SpinalTap'' style tour of America after the fall of the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Berlin Wall]].

** And that "Katyusha" or "Kalinka" [[ALittleSomethingCalledRockAndRoll is rock & roll]].

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: No matter how many layers of [[FakeNationality fake nationalities]] the Cowboys have piled up, one could always hear that they're Finns.
* PrecisionFStrike: "I'm Not An A*****e". You don't have to guess hard to find out what the asterisks "censor" on the cover of ''Mongolian Barbecue''.

Thank you very many!

--->'''Guy in the audience:''' "What a load o' shit!"
----

* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America''. It's the main characters, the Leningrad Cowboys themselves, who know nothing about rock and roll—or any Western music for that matter—when they come to America.
-->"Your music will go over big down there. Here we have somethin' different. It's called rock and roll." Used to be parodied by the Leningrad Cowboys themselves at their concerts. They announced to play some music known as rock and roll, and the song was even claimed to have been #1 in America for seven years. And then they played something like "Katyusha" or "Kalinka".

** [[InUniverse Within the movie canon]], they're even DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible. Best example: They drive the Club Zhivago into closure just by playing one gig there.

* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America''. It's the main characters, the Leningrad Cowboys themselves, who know nothing about rock and roll—or any Western music for that matter—when they come to America.
-->"Your music will go over big down there. Here we have somethin' different. It's called rock and roll."
** Used to be parodied by the Leningrad Cowboys themselves at their concerts. They announced to play some music known as rock and roll, and the song was even claimed to have been #1 in America for seven years. And then they played something like "Katyusha" or "Kalinka".

* CoverAlbum: ''Happy Together'', an album consisting entirely of various popular songs performed together with the Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble. That's right, the Worst Rock & Roll Band in the World and a 120-piece orchestra and choir from what was the Soviet Union the year before play stuff like "[[LedZeppelin Stairway To Heaven]]".

The Leningrad Cowboys are a novelty classic rock / oompah band from Finland, who famously appeared in Aki Kaurismäki's ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' playing themselves on a disastrous ''SpinalTap'' style tour of America after the fall of the [[ColdWar Berlin Wall]].

* InTheStyleOf: Oh, how the Leningrad Cowboys love to do this. "[[Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival Proud Mary]]" ACappella, "Those Were The Days" as hard rock, "[[Music/ZZTop Gimme All Your Lovin']]" as a polka (together with the Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble no less), "[[Music/BillyIdol Rebel Yell]]" as {{ska}}, and the end credits of ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America'' are accompanied by the Finnish polka tune "Säkkijärven Polkka" — as a mambo.

** Within the movie canon, they're even DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible. Best example: They drive the Club Zhivago into closure just by playing one gig there.

* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: Reversed in ''Leningrad Cowboys Go America''. It's the main characters, the Leningrad Cowboys themselves, who know nothing about rock and roll—or any Western music for that matter—when they come to America.

* AudienceParticipationSong: Used to be [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] with "Kasakka" which the audience sang before the band began to play along.
* TheBackwardsR: Taken far beyond the Я.

* {{Defictionalization}}: The band remained together after the movie and has toured and recorded albums ever since.
* FakeNationality: Taken to the extreme in their early days. Finnish musicians [[FakeRussian pretended to be Russians]], and on stage they [[{{Fauxreigner}} used to claim]] [[FakeAmerican they're American]] rock & roll musicians ''and'' cosmonauts (!) who spend most of their time on the moon where they travel from Earth by sputnik.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Inverted.
** Then again, Germans ''do'' love the Leningrad Cowboys.
* HeavyMetalUmlaut: Lɘиiиɢяad Cowʙoys and similar wacky pseudo-Cyrillic spellings.

* AnimeHair

* SoBadItsGood: According to their early self-description, they are (or at least were) "the worst rock & roll band in the world", and they played that part pretty well on stage. At the same time, they were celebrated by their fans.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: "[[EpicRiff Born To Be Wild]]" is the first song in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'' that proves to be successful for the Cowboys.

* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: Reversed in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica''. It's the main characters, the Leningrad Cowboys themselves, who know nothing about rock and roll—or any Western music for that matter—when they come to America.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: [[EpicRiff Born To Be Wild]] in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica''.

* {{Faux Death}}/{{Human Popsicle}}: Pekka Virtanen, bass guitarist and co-writer of the original song material in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'', spends most of the film frozen after having rehearsed half the night out in the cold of the tundra. He is hauled about in a wooden crate roughly resembling a coffin with four holes for the hairdo, the shoes, and the bass stuck in his hand, which is filled with ice cubes to keep him from thawing and eventually rotting. [[spoiler:At the end, he is reanimated with a swig of either vodka or tequila, so he has never been dead in the first place.]]

* [=~Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut~=]: Lɘиiиɢяad Cowʙoys and similar wacky pseudo-Cyrillic spellings.

* {{Ruritania}}: {{UsefulNotes/Finland}} is pretty much the opposite of Ruritania in Real Life...

* {{Faux Death}}/{{Human Popsicle}}: Pekka Virtanen, bass guitarist and co-writer of the original song material in ''LeningradCowboysGoAmerica'', spends most of the film frozen after having rehearsed half the night out in the cold of the tundra. He is hauled about in a wooden crate roughly resembling a coffin with four holes for the hairdo, the shoes, and the bass stuck in his hand, which is filled with ice cubes to keep him from thawing and eventually rotting. [[spoiler:At the end, [[IGotBetter he is reanimated]] with a swig of either vodka or tequila, so he has never been dead in the first place.]]