I remember one day I was chatting with my old classmate from University of Mongolia and when I asked how is UB he remarked "Oh well, last time I visited it (he studied in Japan that time)it was quite depressing. UB is not UB anymore. It's flooded with country people and dismal mood is fostered by fleeting former city people abroad. You hear everywhere Zohioliin Duu and nothing else."
His statement expressed his melancholy and lost nostalgia for old urban lifestyle that UB represented. It is sort of we hear today, London is not London anymore it's flooded my immigrants. Here, the nostalgia is not my main concern here. I wanted to discuss here what is Zohioliin Duu. To try to render it loosely, Duu means song and Zohioliin would be somewhere close to amateur writing. The connotation of this phrase has altered dramatically in last 10-15 years. As far as I remember when I grew up zohioliin duu always meant songs made up and composed by amateur artists who would just combine together well sounding rhymes and attach tune to it by guitar or basic musical instruments. In general it was not composed by well-established composers and never had any classical note recording. These songs were popular in camps, countrysides where people played a lot of guitar.
Nowadays, the connotation has changed abruptly to acquire almost new meaning of Zohioliin Duu. It meant clearly, songs that are popular in rural areas and among country bumpkins who recently moved to UB. These songs are often played in supermarkets where labor is usually driven from rural areas, black markets, in taxi cabs, and lately a lot on popular FM stations. Now, the last one is a matter of a concern to my friend who studied in Japan. Of course, all his teenage and early student years were filled with Western Pop in anticipation of the fall of Communism, which made its splash in its aftermath in 90's and early decade of 2000. For him zohioliin duu would always sound cowboyish. I must admit that probably he doesn't have distate to it. He has his favorite zohioliin duu and favorite zohioliin singer perhaps, but nevertheless what is this resentment to zohioliin duu entering the mainstream?
This is my favorite one where this couple resembles Romeo and Juliet. The song is very simple consists of basic repetitive rhyming. But, the song altogether is awfully retro. I love it.
