From Bach to ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ here's the music Russia's government is using to inject the youths with ‘cultural literacy’

Russia’s Culture Ministry has issued a new set of recommendations for what it calls “The Schoolchild’s Cultural Standards.” This new educational project is intended to bolster “the spiritual, aesthetic, and artistic development of Russian schoolchildren and increase the cultural literacy of our rising generation.”

The ministry’s list is divided into seven areas: literature, visual art, architecture, folk culture, music, theater, and film.

The music category reads like a baby boomer’s dream: From classics like Tchaikovsky and Mozart, it moves on to 20th-century rock hits like Queen, ABBA, Kino, and Akvarium. The new Cultural Standards program will be launched in full on October 1.

We compiled some of the program’s musical recommendations into a special playlist. If your spiritual and aesthetic development is feeling a bit sub-par today (or you just want to pretend it’s 1985), have a listen.