“Život” by Josipa Lisac (2000)

Amongst veteran Croatian artists who managed to endure into the new millennium - avalanche of the new kids on the block made sure that only handful of old cornerstones are still visible - Josipa Lisac enjoyed unique status as celebrated female Rock star in what was predominantly male provenance. There were of course, other girl singers dabbling in Rock from time to time but Lisac was right there at the very beginning from 1960s and even with all notoriety this genre usually suggest, she firmly held her position for decades. Her career was always closely connected to composer and soul mate Karlo Metikoš who left his own very successful career as a Rock pioneer in order to tailor songs for her - still unprecedented phenomenon in music business - and when Metikoš suddenly passed away from heart attack, the whole country held its breath because we thought that she might pull out of the business altogether. They were our own royal Rock couple, our own John Lennon & Yoko Ono who lived by their own rules (in fact, they never even married officially) and created music absorbed in each other. 

Grieved and obviously distracted, Lisac took some time away from spotlights but other artists insisted on collaborations - the list of her guest vocals, duets and collaborations suggested that her eventual, inevitable return to studio will be who’’s who of Croatian Rock music - when she finally decided to record new album, the procrastination resulted in unexpected but perhaps logical decision that instead of new authors, she will use archives with unused songs Metikoš left behind. From now on, her whole raison d'être and purpose will be to keep on his memory alive, with annual concert tributes to him and celebrations of their past. 

Personally I wasn’t overwhelmed with this project, although I understand the idea behind it. The new, excellent band tweaked and turned all the electronic knobs in order to somehow turn these unused songs into something coherent but results only showed that with modern production Lisac can be still counted on as vital force in business. Few songs were promoted on pop festivals (“Život je samo most”, “Pjesma za Tebe”), there was an occasional cover (modernised version of an old B side “Večer u Luna Parku” and “Gime Some Lovin”) and lyrics by Ivica Krajač were fine, but final results were not nearly as interesting as expected. It should be noted that Lisac enjoyed complete rejuvenation of career with her previous LP album “Boginja” (1987) where for the first time her beloved Metikoš was not the only composer - several other, younger composers were also involved and the album was hugely successful because of this variety of collaborators. The decision to stick with his music might have been Lisac’s own personal way of dealing with grief but I can’t help wondering how things might have worked out had she collaborated with all these young artists who asked her to duet with them instead.