After witnessing her show-stopping turn in "Gubec beg" (Croatian answer to "Jesus Christ Superstar") the bigwigs from Atlantic Records invited Josipa Lisac to visit U.S. and try her luck in much wider arena. Amongst lots of media speculations and widely discussed polemics, excited and flattered Lisac (together with her partner Karlo Metikoš) packed her bags and embarked on American odyssey that led them trough New York, Nashville and Los Angeles, where they self-financed recording of her American album just to find that its extremely hard to crack such established and competitive market. Disappointed but defiant, couple returned to homeland where Metikoš staged his new rock-opera and Lisac released same album with new vocals (in Croatian translation) but this time their return provoked public backlash and they both must have felt as they were alone on a raft in the middle of the Ocean.
Listening this album almost four decades later, its hard to find what exactly critics found wrong with it - personally, I enjoyed it - except that naturally it has absolutely nothing in common with her celebrated 1973. debut album "Dnevnik jedne ljubavi" that forever hung above Lisac like a curse. It must bewildered her that her Croatian debut, recorded in plain studios of Zagreb's "Jugoton" somehow found far more acceptance and following than this state of the art album recorded in Studio 55, Los Angeles with cream of best available session musicians - Paulinho Da Costa on percussion, Ira Newborn (guy who worked with Blues Brothers and The Manhattan Transfer) as arranger, even photographer Sam Emerson shot album covers for Michael Jackson - everybody played well and it was all professional but the fact is, for American musicians this was just another gig. If paid well, they would play for a singer from Zimbabwe and than forget about it. Yes, there is some decent material here, ranging from disco to funk, rock and ballads, even some Van Morrison covers and Lisac was probably at her all-time vocal peak, with almost intimidating arsenal of vocal ornamentations but it didn't have the zest, energy and magic of that old homegrown album where musicians celebrated in the studio after each take, drunk on creativity and high on music. Truth to be told, Croatian lyrics by otherwise dependable Ivica Krajač totally spoil the effect, as they appear written hurriedly and carelessly so besides the fans, audiences kept away from this and it took some nerve, perseverance and faith until Lisac established herself again.
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