Ništa Kontra Seve

The Zagreb suburb of Zaprešić isn't the happiest place for Severina at the moment, according to the SeveFanClub blog: after postponing a concert there due to food poisoning, the rescheduled concert was interrupted by Dinamo Zagreb fans throwing lighters at the stage when Severina began to sing...

...Nista kontra Splita (Nothing against Split), Dino Dvornik's smash hit from 1995 which quickly became an anthem for Dinamo's biggest rivals, Hajduk Split.

That'll be the problem, then.

(The extensive Hajduk songbook also includes: Mišo Kovač's Dalmacija u mom oku, a Hajdukised version of Magazin's Tri sam ti zime šaptala ime, a certainly unsanctioned version of Novi fosili's Za dobra stara vremena, and a version of the Ustaša anthem Evo zore, evo dana rewritten for the splitski huligani.)

Readers of SFC and Jutarnji list, which picked up the story today, largely seem to be asking what Severina was doing transgressing Croatia's north-south divide in the first place, although expecting Severina not to be provocative these days is a tall order.

The Gazette wonders whether this qualifies Severina, in the footsteps of Doris Dragović (but not quite Seka Aleksić), as the new Kraljica Torcide...?

Moj Sokole Again

You wait.. not very long... for a Severina scandal, and then two come along at once. With essentially the same song, no less.

Jutarnji list is reporting that Severina has decided to withdraw Moj sokole from Splitski festival after all - the result, according to JL, of negative publicity caused by Jasmin Stavros's earlier withrawal (on the grounds that Sokole, alias the demo version of Štikla, would have an unfair advantage over the rest of the line-up), and by recent allegations that Sokole had been copied from Toma Bebić's 1980s song Oja noja. (Back in March, Oja-noja was in fact being given as another alternative title for the demo.)

The festival director, Tomislav Mrduljaš, told a press conference yesterday that Severina was all the more upset to withdraw because of her own connections with Split, but still felt under too much pressure to be able to continue in the festival.

Večernji list, meanwhile, has the news that Danijela Martinović is bringing out an album with Latino vesions of some of her old hits under the title Cante i baile con Danijela (Sing and dance with Danijela). (Shakira surely has a lot to answer for.)

The Gazette's favourite story of the day, though: Henry Jenkins's discussion on his new-ish blog of the upcoming Bollywood take on Superman...