Below you’ll find all the songs from the official Brat 2 soundtrack as well as other songs that appear in this cult classic. Enjoy!
Brother (Russian Film Hub page here) and Brother 2 (Russian Film Hub page here) are some of the most iconic movies to come out of Russia in recent years. If you’ve read what I have to say about both movies, you’ll know that I prefer the original Brother. That being said, the Brother 2 soundtrack is definitely better. The original Brother (soundtrack here) mostly featured songs by the rock band, Nautilus Pompilius. However, Brother 2 features a wide range of contemporary Russian music across rock and pop.
The two music groups that feature most prominently in the Brother 2 soundtrack are the pop star, Ирина Салтыкова / Irina Saltykova, and the rock band, Би-2 / Bi-2.
Irina Saltykova is a Russian pop star who has also acted in a number of movies. In Brother 2 she played Danila’s love interest, portraying herself. Saltykova got her start in pop music in the euro disco group, Мираж / Mirage, in the late 1980s. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s she enjoyed a successful solo career, releasing six albums. Her official website is here.
Bi-2 is an alternative rock band, originally formed in 1988 in Belarus. The group was founded by two friends, Alexander Uman / Александр Уман и Igor Bortnik / Егор Бортник. Though they founded the group in 1988, they didn’t release their first album until 1998, due to them moving around the world. Nevertheless, since 1998, Bi-2 has become one of the most popular rock bands in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Bi-2’s official website is here. They’re still regularly touring around Russia and Europe!
I’ve also included what scenes these songs appear in for reference. That way, maybe you’ll associate the songs more clearly with those movie moments and enjoy them even more!
This song is playing on TV when Danila is in Irina Saltykova’s apartment for the first time.
Полковник actually appears three times in the movie, always right before Danila is about to go on a violent rampage. The first time, Danila attempts to free Marilyn the Russian prostitute from her Chicago pimp. The second time, Danila successfully escapes with Marilyn. And the third time, Danila has his killing spree in the Metro Club.
This song appears during Danila’s two happiest times in the film. It first plays during Danila and Irina Saltykova’s night time date before he leaves to America. It’s clear that Danila really like Irina – maybe he even realizes he loves her. The next time the song shows up is during my favorite sequence in Brother 2 . That’s when Danila is riding in Ben’s 18-wheeler truck to Chicago. The adorable friendship Danila and Ben forge, despite how they can’t really understand each other, is so pure and heartwarming.
Along with Бай-Бай / Bye-Bye, this song appears on TV when Danila is in Irina Saltykova’s apartment.
Варвара plays the second time that Danila enters the Metro Club in Chicago.
This is the song for which Irina Saltykov is shooting her music video in the movie.
This song plays when Danila is wandering around Brighton Beach, the Russian neighborhood in New York where he purchases his shoddy car. Земфира is a great musician by the way.
This appears after Danila is released from the police station after he gets in the fight with Marilyn’s pimp.
This plays when Irina Saltykova walks to her apartment building, while the gangsters who are hunting Danila look on lecherously.
The background music for when Danila and his brother, Viktor, are separately going to the airport in Moscow and flying to the US.
This plays when Danila makes a makeshift gun that shoots nails. He then uses it to rob that gun to rob some gun sellers who are in cahoots with Marilyn’s pimp.
This song plays four times throughout the movie, each time when Danila’s older brother, Viktor, is on the move. First, it plays when Viktor arrive in Moscow, looking for Danila to get help. Second, it appears when the Moscow gangsters are chasing Danila and Viktor. Then, it shows up again when Viktor is wandering around the Ukrainian part of town in Chicago. Finally, it plays one more time when the Chicago police storm the apartment where Viktor is hiding out in Chicago.
This appears in the bar that Danila, Viktor, and Danila’s friend, Ilya, meet in to sort out their fake American visas in Moscow.
This is background music when Kostya, Danila, and Ilya are having what ends up being their final moments together in the bathhouse.
Гни свою линию plays when Danila comes to Kostya’s place and finds him dead. It also plays when Ilya carjacks the white Volvo.
In the background when Danila gets to Chicago and wanders around town, unable to make contact with his brother.
Played when Danila climbs all the way up Mennis the American crime boss’s tower fire escape.
On in Boris Irina Saltykova’s guard’s car when Danila leaves Irina’s apartment building.
Playing on the radio when Danila, Viktor and Ilya are driving to the TV Center.
Also on the radio when Danila, Viktor and Ilya are driving to the TV Center.
Plays when Danila is in the car in Chicago with Marilyn and the two men who are selling him guns. Of course, he ends up robbing them by firing nails from his homemade gun into one of their faces.
This little-known American rock group, Sleeping for Sunrise, holds the distinction of having the only non-Russian song in the Brother 2 soundtrack. Sleeping for Sunrise perform it live in the Metro Club in Chicago.
Ла Манш perform this song live in the Metro Club in Chicago.
A version of this song performed by children appears in Brat 2’s opening and end credits. Below, you’ll see the more popular original version performed by Nautilus Pompilius.
This song plays in the fancy Metropol Restaurant where Viktor is enjoying a luxurious dinner with two unnamed beautiful women. That is, until his dinner is interrupted by a Ukrainian hitman. The scene where he kills this hitman got Brat 2 officially banned in Ukraine. It’s because when Viktor kills the Ukrainian, he accuses him of being a Nazi collaborator and says “This is for Sevastopol!”