Magazin: Fourth Time Luckier?

After nine years as lead singer of the Croatian pop band Magazin, lead singer Jelena Rozga is now starting a solo career, according to Jutarnji list, and plans to launch it by appearing in the Croatian pre-selection for Eurovision in March.

Rozga joined the band in 1996 after impressing the band's manager-producer-keyboardist Tonči Huljić just as her predecessor, Danijela Martinović, was set to go solo herself and embark on an unhappy marriage. Danijela had spent six years in the band, following Ljiljana Nikolovska's seven, so it's no wonder that the when-will-Jelena-leave-Magazin story has been ticking over for at least two years, probably since the first time anybody did the maths.

In fact, ex-ballerina Jelena has been supposed to be on her way out since July 2005, when the director of the Zvijezdice girls' choir was apparently suggesting replacements. Zvijezdice are where thirtysomething diva Nina Badrić first caught the music bug; today's line-up may not be of the same vintage.

Talking to Radio Dalmatia, Huljić has announced auditions for 'all interested girls from the Split-Dalmatia county', and stated that Jelena will stay in the band until a new singer has been finalised. On the off-chance that you're an interested girl from the Split-Dalmatia county, it's worth remembering that Magazin lead singers tend not to look unlike.

Indeed, Jelena might have started looking over her shoulder two years ago when Huljić presented a new teenage blonde discovery, Andrea Šušnjara, at that year's Dora festival, giving her an audition piece a song full of Jelena's trademark vocal acrobatics. Dora presenter and well-known radio DJ Zlatko Turkalj came to the same conclusion as many, and irritated Huljić no end by asking him when Andrea was going to become the next lead singer of Magazin.

(This may or may not be the same Andrea Šušnjara whose school essay for Europe Day 2002 is still hanging around. Working this out is made more complicated since she has simultaneously been 17 in 2004 and born in 1978.)

Whether Split is currently overcome with Magazin fever is another matter. Today's edition of the Split daily Slobodna Dalmacija shows teenage girls queueing in their hundreds to audition.

In London, that is, for the role of Luna Lovegood in the next Harry Potter film.