"Budi se dan" by Doris Dragović (1990)

I just had an epiphany: this, basically folk album (arranged and framed as pop music, but only because of synthesisers and drum machines) is exactly what was previously done by composers Đorđe Novković and Rajko Dujmić for another singer from previous generation, Neda Ukraden. Ukraden has found huge mainstream success in 1970s and 1980s by appealing to masses with her folksy material dressed up as pop music and on closer inspection, everything from her lyrics to folk-sound (folk being here a very wide phrase, describing influences all over, from Mexico to Greece and back) was tailored for her in order to become smash hit amongst listeners who belonged to that grey zone, middle-of-the-road audience who were interested in neither pop or folk exactly but preferred this clever hybrid. Ukraden went on from strength to strength with her collaborators and composer Zrinko Tutić was obviously aware that there is a huge market out there for this kind of music so he created his own Ukraden out of young Doris Dragović who was more than capable to step into older colleague shoes and follow the path.

Close your eyes for a moment and it would be easy to imagine this material as sung by Ukraden - it is exactly same approach and combination of folk motives with light pop that older singer used to do. In fact, by some coincidence there is a cover of old Mexican chestnut "Kap veselja" that Lola Novaković recorded back in 1960s and this was actually very first song that young (and than unknown) Ukraden performed in public. So the shadow of Neda Ukraden looms strongly over this whole album and at this point Dragović sounds exactly like her clone, so close that even the last song, anthemic  "Budi se dan"  sounds uncomfortably close to Ukraden's smash hit "Zora je svanula". The appeal of this kind of calculated collection depends of how much is listener conditioned to accept this hybrid of folk and pop - success of not just Ukraden (who was the queen of folk-pop) but bands like "Magazin" proved that there is a wide audience for this kind of music.