13.10.17

Old pop festivals: Zagreb '74


Delightful little slice of early 1970s pop music the way it was promoted and presented in than spectacular, new concert hall Vatroslav Lisinski that became venerable institution since, but it must have been a big deal for audiences back than. As opposite to similar festival in Split that embraced and even thrived on mass appeal, music festival in Zagreb strove to keep some sophistication and insisted on certain urban sensitivity that was not always focused on entertaining, hence material pulled from poetry, chansons and ubiquitous tributes to town. 

As expected, there were some big hits that found their way to singles (Duško Lokin, Dalibor Brun) therefore they were not represented on this LP album but for the most part everything worth mentioning is here: whiskey-voiced Darko Domijan, than hot band More from Split, Oliver Dragojević and young Ksenija Erker all had their moments and they were generally very good. Zvonko Špišić and Ibrica Jusić kept things serious, while ladies like Beti Jurković and Elvira Voća had their pleasant but unexceptional turns. Than in his fifties, veteran Ivo Robić obviously had to be included, although neither his style nor music changed one iota since he sang on very first Zagreb festival in 1954. Probably the best of all was a hypnotic ballad by duo Buco i Srđan who had real poem (by Dragutin Tadijanović) set in music and its still lovely song. The most unusual was song not included on LP (it was released as a single) by tandem Ivica Krajač and Karlo Metikoš for über diva Josipa Lisac ("Ostaješ mi samo ti") that has lyrics obviously inspired by 1970 single "Pusti me da spavam".


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