Comeback Of The Week: Lepa Brena

It's the logical conclusion of Croatian retromanija: according to Jutarnji list, Yugoslavia's emblematic 1980s folk-pop singer Lepa Brena is planning a concert tour of Croatia, starting with Zagreb in 'late summer or September'.

Brena says that she's decided to tour Croatia because 'I see that retro is in fashion, mid-80s music, full of romance and love' - but is ruling out recording any duets with newer singers because they are 'complicated to record'. (Yes, that includes Severina, who's been talking about her new Bregović-produced album again ahead of her next theatrical appearance.)

Meanwhile - it's obviously one of those weeks - Bora Đorđević from the Serbian rock band Riblja Čorba will be appearing on Mirjana Hrga's talk show Epicentar to discuss the Serbian elections (on which East Ethnia and Anegdote have already contributed their own lucid thoughts). For any of its readers who might have been asleep during the last seventeen years, 24 sata's article on the show gives no more or less introduction to Đorđević than that 'at the beginning of the war the Serbian singer declared himself as a Četnik and it is well known that he politically belongs to the Radicals.'

Showbusiness Ethnopolitics: Jugoslovenka

In 1987, the emblematic Yugoslav showbusiness-folk singer Lepa Brena expanded her multimedia empire that little bit further by releasing a feature film, Hajde da se volimo (Let's make love). Now eerily reminiscent of the ill-fated SpiceWorld, the film's pantomime-style plot saw Brena pursued by Arab sheiks intent on foiling her rendezvous in Dubrovnik with an English promoter who intended her to star in a thinly-veiled analogue of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Two years later there not unreasonably came Hajde da se volimo 2. Among the musical centrepieces this time was Brena's Jugoslovenka, with guest vocals from three regionally representative male stars (Danijel Popović for Montenegro, Vlado Kalember for Croatia, and Alen Islamović for Bosnia) and a syncretic chorus of:

'Oči su mi more jadransko
Kose su mi klasje panonsko
Sestra mi je duša slovenska
Ja sam Jugoslovenka

('My eyes are the Adriatic Sea
My hair is Pannonian wheat
My sister is the Slavic soul
I am the Yugoslav woman')

Hajde da se volimo 1 has been out on DVD for a while, and indeed last Christmas the Gazette nearly ended up with two copies. This year, the DVD of Hajde da se volimo 2 has sensibly been reissued in its 'original version' - so says its packaging - for the '06 holiday market.

Except, it would seem the time for rewriting musical memory isn't quite over yet: the Serbian tabloid Kurir discovered yesterday, for the Jugoslovenka segment, which has been replaced by a clip of Brena performing in Sofia; the best Kurir has been able to get out of the issuers ZAM is that the segment was excised at the wish of the song's composer, Marija Čavić.

Večernji list in Zagreb has now picked up the story of 'Brena's Yugo-trash trilogy' - basically reprising the Kurir title, but adding (with typical cross-border tabloid chemistry) that 'the song was sung together with Lepa Brena by the Croatian singers Daniel Popović and Vlado Kalember.'

Never fear, though: there's always YouTube for these situations.

Brena's Silver Jubilee

The Serbian tabloid Svet has two landmarks to celebrate this week: Ceca Ražnatović filming the first video from her comeback album Idealno loša, and Lepa Brena marking her '25-year reign as the queen of narodnjaci.'

Brena herself will be releasing a new album in the autumn to celebrate her silver jubilee, and a big tour is planned for next year. (To include Croatia? And she'd better not clash with Magazin's.)

According to Svet, the HTV entertainment show Špica is currently filming an item on Brena (no more details as yet), for whom, contrary to certain appearances last autumn, there evidently is some room on HTV. Svet itself carries a long interview with Brena this week: carried out by the Croatian journalist Darko Hudelist, it needless to say begins by asking Brena her thoughts on Severina's Moja štikla, which apparently reminds Hudelist (and he's not alone) of 'your early hits, for instance 'Sitnije, Cile, sitnije'.

(Brena's response? 'Well, now, 'Sitnije, Cile, sitnije' is Njegoš's 'Mountain Wreath' in comparison to 'štikla, cikla, nikla, pikla'...')

Brena goes on to reflect on her debut album with Milutin Popović Zahar (now a sharp critic of today's Serbian showbusiness), her inappropriate outfits for TV, her interrupted plans to launch her transnational career in Turkey, and her experiences during the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Brena also stresses that she considers 'that showbusiness and politics can't [go] together in these territories of ours':

'--Isn't Ceca an example which proves the opposite?

--Everyone chooses their own way. I chose a way that lets both me and my children go to America, and Australia, and Canada, and Croatia, and Bosnia, and Macedonia.'

Turbofolklore: Aleksandar Kostadinov

Jutarnji list's detailed Štikla coverage continues with an extensive interview with HTV's head of entertainment, Aleksandar Kostadinov, who is naturally 'not surprised' at the weeks of Severina-related controversy and very satisfied that Dora was watched by 'more than half of Croatia'.

Asked whether Severina's song counts as 'ethno or turbo-folk, Kostadinov unambiguously replies:

'That song has nothing to do at all with turbo-folk. Turbo-folk is Serbian newly-composed music performed by, for instance, Lepa Brena and Jelena Karleuša. I don't like that sort of music, and I don't follow it.

--Still, many people have compared Severina and 'Moja štikla' with Lepa Brena and 'Sitnije, Cile, sitnije'. But, while you didn't let Lepa Brena appear on HTV in the autumn, at the same time you chose Severina to represent us in Eurovision. Can you explain that?

First of all, I have nothing against Lepa Brena. I don't even know her. I presume she's an OK person, her husband is [tennis player] Boba Živojinović... But, I consider there's no place for her songs on our national television station. As long as I'm the editor of entertainment programming, such songs will not be put on air.'

Kostadinov is also asked to comment on whether 'Štikla' also contains elements of Montenegrin folklore, as claimed by another jury member Željen Klašterka. (In fact, Klašterka referred to elements from Montenegro and Herzegovina; and it may or may not be wise to advertise a Montenegrin connection right now.)

'Nobody is disputing that. In that song there are indeed traces of folklore from this region present. Derivaties of the ljerica and similar instruments also exist in a part of Montenegro, only they are differently used.'

Kostadinov continues by dropping hints that a 'euro-disco' remix of Štikla would be extremely well received, 'Not at [Zagreb turbofolk club] Ludnica if that's what you're thinking,' but at Euro-disco clubs 'with a slightly gay audience.'

On the first version of 'Moja štikla',

'The lyrics were different. The first version was about a Croatian sokol [falcon] and it was patriotic [domoljubna]. However, the melody itself stayed very similar, apart from the so-called Bregović break-beat. From time to time, he interrupts the basic melody with that beat and throws in 'kvrc-kvrc, štrc-štrc, sss-seks'... That's typical for him.'

In fact, for Kostadinov it seems to be precisely this contribution - itself controversial - which distinguishes 'Štikla from the dreaded turbofolk:

'Štikla is a pop song with a break beat which might remind [one] of Shakira [or] Bijelo dugme. There are people from Lado in the ensemble, and I don't know who associates Lado with turbo-folk. There's also a ljerica there, a specific instrument in the linđo, and rere which is sung in the Drniš, Zagora and Herzegovinan region.

'The boys were wearing costumes from the Neretva region. If someone associates those costumes with Serbia, I really can't help him. I don't understand the statement by [folk musician] Mojmir Novaković from Legen. Because, on 'Štikla' the ljerica plays a melody which, if you were to stamp your feet, is in fact the deaf kolo from Vrlika. And Mojmir, who made his career out of the deaf kolo, claims that 'Štikla' is turbo-folk. Anything!'

And for the record? His own favourite was Massimo Savić.

Moja Štikla: In Front Of Europe

The proportion of the Croatian cultural scene instigated by Goran Bregović will go up again in a couple of weeks' time, when his opera Carmen with a Happy End opens in Rijeka. It won't, however, be starring his number one Croatian collaborator, despite some earlier reports. Instead, Vaska Jankovska (a vocalist on his Weddings and Funerals project) will take the title role; Severina, needless to say, has other commitments looming.

Split's daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija took longer than most to catch up with Seve, but compensates today with two articles heading its Reflektor supplement.

Among today's snippets are that the song's (second?) most infamous line 'Afrika paprika', it turns out, was apparently thought up as a joke by one of the Matić brothers during a recording session; that Severina didn't know she'd have to take part in the Eurovision semi-final until she was reminded by Petar Grašo's mother; and that she's prepared for some lively press conferences in Athens because 'when they put "Severina" into Google, it could give them absolutely everything.' (Maybe they should try it with Moja štikla, though.)

As for the continued debate over whether or not the song is turbofolk:

'When the attacks began [saying] that my song was turbo-folk, I thought "I can take it", because I've always been accused of evertthing. [...] When we went to borrow the costumes which the Lado boys were going to appear in, they wanted national costume from the Neretva, which I looked at and saw there were buttons which looked like Turkish, oriental decorations, which isn't strange - sailors brought that to our parts. I have to thank the Matić brothers from Čavoglave who sang on my song in the studio and gave it its real form, from which we went forward later. I'm glad that in the song there's linđo, ojkalica, rere and šijalica, and that Stjepan Večković played the ljerica sensationally. When Goran Bregović did the arrangement, he gave him instructions about how to play.'

Meanwhile, Arsen Oremović in Večernji list reflects on 'whether Severina's Štikla is turbofolk and what turbofolk is anyway':

'So Severina's song is without any doubt turbofolk, but here something Serbian is necessarily implied under that term, so the resistance of stars in Croatia to such labels is all the stronger. Far from turbofolk being [...] something of which one should be proud, something to be praised.

'Still, the fact that the people wants to legitimise itself in front of Europe with "Štikla" tells [us] that the audience's general taste is worse than 25 years ago, because then a certain Lepa Brena, despite a forceful campaign and lobbying by her record label, did not manage to march to victory at that year's Eurovision pre-selection with the folk [narodnjačkim] hit "Bum, cile, bum". And today it's not really so impossible to imagine that even Lepa Brena would win Dora if she was extravagant enough to turn up there.'

Oremović also comments on how Eurovision itself:

'still has definite weight only in eastern European countries and the countries of the ex-USSR which like to prove how Europe has reached their borders too by using foreign forms like that. There various fripperies like Eurovision (everything with Euro in the title) become state priority number one.

'Such countries with their Severinas (or, if you like, with their Ruslanas) have shaped the Eurovision musical taste in which Štikla fits in more than well. And when it spreads across the internet that the Croatian singer has her own blue movie which can be seen at such-and-such web adresses, and that is undoubtedly waiting, we can at once begin getting ready for the next Eurovision somewhere in Croatia.'

With plans suddenly reported to build a new conference hall in Opatija on the site of the present Summer Stage, it seems somebody is.