Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey Brain Stuff,

Hey Brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here.

Curating your favorite music these days is as easy as creating a playlist, but it wasn't always that simple.

In the 1950s, teenagers in the Soviet Union had to go to back-breaking lengths to listen to popular music, literally cutting records

upon images of a broken arm, leg, or rib in the process.

Let's unpack that.

In the years after World War II, the USSR took exception to music and art that seemed

too flagrantly individualized for its communist sensibilities. This meant that it was nearly impossible

for Soviet teenagers to buy the same vinyl records of Elvis or Ella Fitzgerald as their counterparts in the United States and Western Europe.

Aside from a few expensive copies on the black market, the music craved by the Stil-Yagi or Style Hunters in their teens and 20s was elusive.

But as with other attempts at prohibition, a ban on music did not mean that there wasn't a demand for it.

The Stilayagi were particularly interested in rock and roll and jazz.

Though it wasn't just Western music that caught the eye of the sensors, music that people had grown up with,

anything considered subversive, was subject to bands. And so when they wanted to share their beloved

music with others, a few industrious teens pressed the records that they could access on to vinyl.

However, vinyl was a scarcity, and that's when one of the ingenuities of a generation kicked in.

The Stilayagi scoured hospital dumpsters for scrapped x-rays and used these thin vinyl

sheets to create bootleg records.

Using a disc cutter, they would duplicate a recording onto the x-ray,

trim the disc by hand, and burn a hole in the center with a cigarette.

The same process was illustrated in the opening credits of the 2008 Russian film Stiliyagi.

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