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Why the heck was rock n' roll officially BANNED in the Soviet Union until Gorbachev came onto the scene? Was it that offensive to the Russian government?I heard that Russian teens got rock music thru Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Yes the Soviets used jamming radio signals,but clever folks found ways to get their rock music fix!! Didn't the Russian goverment know that BANNING rock music outright made it more attractive to the teens they were trying to make good little COMMIES out of? BTW,saw the Paul McCartney concert from Moscow on A&E. It was great to see the crowd really getting into the show! They had people come on before the commercials and explain what kids did to make bootleg rock recordings and what the Russkies did to kids who they caught listening to "Western" music.
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It's funny to think that the former Soviet Union still has one of the largest bastions of rock fans in the world.  :)

The former communist government saw rock as western music and there-fore a threat to their political system.  To say that rock was banned out right would be incorrect, as it was tolerated to a certain extent through out the 70's and 80's but never allowed to get big.  There were hard rock and metal bands that played in small clubs and as long as they didn't say anything against the communist system they were pretty much left alone except for the occasional police harassment.

There were many ways for Russians to source rock music from the west.  One of the more common ways was to buy tapes of Lenin and other political leaders and then tape over it from other pirated music (take that RIAA!!) or recording from shortwave radio.  I also know that Aeroflot employees did a fair amount of smuggling.  Music, Levi's, and colour television sets were the most common items brought in.

But there were many other sources... East Berlin, etc..  I guess where there's a will, there's a way.

I can still remember listening to the Russian jamming signals on shortwave in the late 70's and the 1980's.  Although nowhere near the levels they used to be, there is still some going on... mostly aimed towards the Grozny region and some in Korea.

Quoting:
Why the heck was rock n' roll officially BANNED in the Soviet Union until Gorbachev came onto the scene? Was it that offensive to the Russian government?I heard that Russian teens got rock music thru Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Yes the Soviets used jamming radio signals,but clever folks found ways to get their rock music fix!! Didn't the Russian goverment know that BANNING rock music outright made it more attractive to the teens they were trying to make good little COMMIES out of? BTW,saw the Paul McCartney concert from Moscow on A&E. It was great to see the crowd really getting into the show! They had people come on before the commercials and explain what kids did to make bootleg rock recordings and what the Russkies did to kids who they caught listening to "Western" music.
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Well I'm from a former Soviet Union country, and thinking back at those times, the way of life etc., keeping western influence out, was a way to keep control of the countries under Soviet Union. And rock n' roll was just one of many things that were banned (food items, cars, tv-s, stereos... well you get the idea). First time I got to eat a banana was when my father came back from a holiday in Cuba, the TV as well as the stereo and VCR were all smuggled in. And talking about music, all the cassettes my father had were copys, recorded from other copies, even the cassettes themselves were smuggled in! So there, that's what I remember!

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There were rock bands in the 90's  ???  Ha-ha, just kidding.  I agree with you.  I call it the bland decade.  As time marches on, we'll look at each decade and what it was great for... but we'll just skip over the 90's as nothing spectacular happened.  :P  It's no wonder the so called "generation-x" faded away rather quickly.
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It all depends on how you lived it.