Josipa Lisac in 2014

While I was in Amsterdam, there were few new video clips showing recent concert activity of my all-time favorite Croatian singer who is still going strong at the age of 64. First, there was a concert in Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome (something about the Peace) where various performers from all over the world supported that particular Piece day. Josipa shared the stage with young Serbian artist and they duetted on explosive version of ancient Croatian song "Zvira voda" - they sound completely different but it turned out to be excellent combination of East-meets-West collaboration. It is truly melodramatic and I was stunned to discover that even at this stage of the game Josipa still can surprise me.

Not long afterwards Josipa was a special guest in Split, a tribute concert to much beloved local composer, late Zdenko Runjić who single-handedly created Dalmatian pop songbook of 1970s and beyond. His music is in my opinion completely different from what Josipa did ever since she turned to Rock in 1973. but it turned out that they actually collaborated way back when they were still very young and long before Josipa met Karlo Metikoš who steered her towards different music - back in 1970 Runjić composed a song that Josipa performed on Split festival It was a grim, beautiful ballad about sailor's wife who spends her life in waiting for her man - very dramatic, poetic and very much like something that Mina would record. Audience back than was too shocked to react (apparently nobody even applauded after the song) but it grew into cult classic and it is perhaps the only song that actually survived the decades from that particular festival. I know the original version my whole life and always loved it to death. On this particular, recent evening Josipa did it the way she sings now, completely changing the original melody and singing circles around it - she was awarded with special award for this performance but I must admit that her particular kind of art has moved just a little but beyond of what I'm used to.

Even more recent is this live performance from a Croatian TV show - it is also a perfect illustration of how she changed and evolved trough the years and this is not exactly my favorite stage of her career. Josipa sings like a dream (she always has) but as she constantly re-visits her classic songbook again and again, it started to sound very predictable, at least to my ears. Nowadays she insists on slowing-down original versions of these songs until they are literally unrecognizable and it puts a lot of people off. Unfortunately there are always fans who ecstatically applaud everything she does, so they encourage her to move even more in that direction (or perhaps she doesn't care anyway, I always had impression she did what she wanted). While I understand and appreciate her attempts to constantly play around old catalogue (instead of simply repeat herself), it takes me a lot of effort to actually like this. But than, she works anytime she wants and is the only one from her generation still very active, so who am I to say anything. I just kind of worry that this works against her, because it puts her out of pop music and in completely different category, which was maybe the whole idea in the first place. I really wish she would sing the darn melody more and leave all this Al Jarreau stuff behind. Even with all that I wrote here, she will forever stay my all-time favorite singer. And I listen music a LOT, so this has not changed at all trough the years. 

More recent updates - during annual award for best dressed celebrities, Croatian fashion magazine "Elle" (probably local version that promotes local designers, I guess) they bestowed special award for Lifetime achievement on Josipa. In all honesty, I couldn't care less for clothes and hairstyles because for me it was always about music but its interesting to see that after all these years where she was criticized and ridiculed for her stage outfits, there are people working in that industry who actually take all these efforts very seriously. 

To my knowledge Josipa never wore her creations off stage and so I would never say that she was trend setter - it was always for the sake of performance, but its true that with her it was always a complete package, audio-visual spectacle so perhaps in a way she did left a mark as how to stand out from the crowd and make a statement. From the very beginnings of her career she did always insist of looking glamorous in her own way - even when that meant completely being at odds with the rest of the competition and alienating mainstream audience who looked at her as some creature from another planet. But I think that trough the years people slowly got used to it and even started anticipating her stage entrances, wondering what will she have on her head this time. Media always loved this and sometimes they wrote much more about outfits than about singing or music, which annoyed me - with time they stopped criticising her and accepted worn-out cliche phrases like "unique", "fabulous", "divine", "original", "fantastic" and what not - it made me wonder who are these people and can't they think about something different to write about her - I would even welcome some creative criticism for a change, but she is now at the point where every rare public appearance seems like red-carpet Hollywood extravaganza. OK fine, yes she was always very brave and interesting to watch, but how about what exactly she is doing up there - hardly anyone notices anymore the way she sails trough the octaves and all the amazing things she does with her voice (am I the only one who noticed the ending of live performance in Macedonia?). Sometimes I even wonder does all of this visual works against her, since people seems to focus so much on cellophane instead on what's inside? Well, good for her anyway.