News piece: #1
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Date: 18th October 2003
Time: 02:30am (GMT)
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From Taturox Forum:

Tatu to Pass On the MTV EMA Nominations to ‘Leningrad’!

Tatu, in spite of being nominated as the ‘Best Russian Act’ for this years’ MTV Europe Music Awards together with four other Russian artists, decided not to claim all the votes they received from the fans. All their votes are going to go to ‘Leningrad’ instead.

To quote part of the groups official (planned) announcement on this matter “Tatu do respect the MTV awards, but the group already won ‘Best Russian Act’ in 2001, and now wants to pass on the opportunity for other Russian groups to show themselves on an international scale in Edinburgh on the 6th of November. Also, in the same announcement, Tatu congratulated Shurov (a member of “Leningrad”) with the award of Tatu’s votes, hoping that with these additional votes, there is no doubt that “Leningrad” will win.

Source: Chrystal at Taturox Forum
Edited by: Atreu Cell
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Atreu Cell comment:

This is unfortunate indeed! I understand what Tatu are trying to do, and I commend them in their selflessness and gallantry, but even so, they need all the positive publicity they can get, and winning awards is one of the most recognized ways of gaining such a thing in the music industry!

More than that, though, having your favorite band win any award is always a nice way of topping up those bragging rights!!! ^_^

In all seriousness though, I think it’s strange and somewhat sad that Tatu should make such a decision, especially since in the UK the media are eager to be as negative to Tatu as possible! It would have been nice to have seen their faces if Tatu had won! Oh well, I guess one can at least say that Tatu are very generous! ^_^
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