The series started in 1987 with a little-known line called “Rock Archive,” which had just three LPs: Deep Purple — Smoke on the Water, Elton John — Your Song, and Elton John — Honky Cat. They were soon reissued under new numbers as volumes 8, 9, and 7, respectively. The track lists and sleeve notes were the same for both versions, and the catalog numbers were the same too. The only difference was the cover art, which was designed by A. Gusev. The prices were different too: “Rock Archive” LPs cost 2 rubles 50 kopecks (the same as releases by Soviet artists), while “Archive of Popular Music” titles carried a 3 rubles 50 kopecks price tag—framed as a “foreign license” premium.

The “Rock Archive” press runs were way smaller than those of “Archive of Popular Music,” which made the former pretty much unavailable to regular buyers.

Andrei Gavrilov, the guy who did the writing and compiling for the series, was pretty well known in the USSR for translating foreign films without permission (later he helped start Solyd Records, a big legal label). In an interview with Rumba, he explained his original naming idea. He had wanted to call it “Pop Archive,” not “Rock Archive,” because he wanted to include blues, R&B, country, soul—”everything Americans call popular music”—as well as rock. After some heated discussions at the studio, he decided to go with “Rock Archive,” thinking the name wasn’t as important as the content. The first three LPs came out under that name, but then, for reasons he still didn’t understand, the name was changed and prices went up.

In total, 12 volumes of Archive of Popular Music were released. The essay that came with volume 12 made it seem like the series would keep going (“In future, you will be able to get acquainted with…”). Gavrilov confirmed this in a 1989 interview, saying that three Elvis Presley LPs were ready, three by Simon & Garfunkel were complete, releases for Joan Baez (first LP) and The Rolling Stones (fourth LP) had been signed off, and work was underway on Janis Joplin, Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Animals, Bob Dylan, Donovan, and Traffic.

But no more were released, even though Melodiya put out the first twelve in the early 1990s. In independent Latvia, the RiTonis plant (the privatized successor to Melodiya’s Riga factory) also pressed later runs with different labels and sleeve colors.

Copyright and Sourcing

They didn’t have the right licenses, but according to the USSR’s national laws, these compilations were technically legal.

The songs had been released from recordings made before 1973, and the tapes themselves—Gavrilov admitted—came from private collections and were dubbed from “quality sources” supplied by musician acquaintances (like Boris Grebenshchikov) and collector-publishers such as Aleksandr Belyavtsev (who later founded the Orfeus label).

“The Rolling Stones were sourced from my then-boss Aleksandr Belyavtsev’s collection,” says Mikhail Shugaev. “Belyavtsev was a journalist, a huge Stones fan, and the publisher of the magazine Rock!, which I edited. The Stones in this series were taken from his CDs.”

These tactics allowed Melodiya to avoid paying royalties for the use of recordings in the USSR. In a 2011 interview, Olga Markina, a Melodiya staffer, said that the company couldn’t have done things differently under those laws.

“A legal environment can’t exist in fragments or islands. Either it exists or, as with copyright in the USSR, it doesn’t. I understand the critics’ arguments, but Melodiya could not have been different inside a state with such an exotic legal framework. The choice wasn’t between the law and breaking it; the question was whether to work under those conditions or not. We chose to work.”

In the early ’90s, Andrei Tropillo and other labels got around the law the same way.

According to international copyright rules, that makes the series “pirate” editions. People sometimes call it a “bootleg,” but that’s not totally accurate because the series used material that had already been released and was covered by copyright. Some people think that because the USSR only joined the Universal Copyright Convention in 1973, Melodiya didn’t have to pay for material recorded before that.

Just so you know, Melodiya says it’s been the producer and owner of most Soviet recordings since 1964. They need permission to reuse archive phonograms, which shows how Soviet and international regimes are different.

Why It Mattered in the USSR

In the USSR, people could only get rock in very limited ways. Melodiya—the state-run music company—usually put rock music on compilations with other types of music, and sometimes the titles and credits were mixed up. The records often didn’t sell as well as they should have.

As a result, most rock music was shared through informal copying from foreign LPs brought in privately. Over time, the sound quality got worse. In that time, Archive of Popular Music stood out for its strong vinyl sound, large records, and legal retail availability at official prices. Each LP also had a long essay about the artist’s creative history.

This was important in a country where there weren’t many magazines and books on rock available. So, for many Soviet listeners, these album covers became a first introduction to the history of rock music.

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Where to find Sovietrecords today?

I was surprised to see some artifacts from the Soviet Union in Paraguay.

I went to a local record store one day. There were a lot of interesting things there, but I was surprised to find Soviet Chris Rea and — which I found quite strange — Rolling Stones from the “Archive of Popular Music” series.

Both records were sold as originals for about $20 and $30. (Chris is really licensed, but the sleeve is very thin and paper-like.) In 2025, the average price of these records in Russia was about 500 rubles ($5).

I’m not sure why these two albums ended up here, but The Rolling Stones are no longer around.

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© 2025 Artur Netsvetaev, interview with Mikhail Shugaev