Old pop festivals: Split '71

It seems that music festival in Split was always immensely popular, from its earliest incarnations it presented fair share of classic pop hits even although occasionally it showed tendency to slide into certain cliché that reflected perhaps not so much its audience as much as calculations of composers who expected what might work, in this case relying too much on drinking songs performed in local dialect. What was a clever gimmick once, became trademark of Split festival and we all kind of got used to it, understanding that amongst the bunch there will always be at least one or two really standout tracks - but you have to cope with endless stream of songs about the sea, boats, vine and sailors. And some more about figs, old olive tree and anything poor mother found while scratching the bottom of the barrel to feed countless hungry children. Don't even let me start about tears shed because girl got married to someone else, as cad/sailor had better things to do while sailing he seven seas. What is really interesting is how Split festival never had aspirations for launching genuine pop hits - they happened almost accidentally but for most part the stage was set for MOR, family friendly entertainers while occasional rock performers (Dado Topić with Korni grupa) were exception. In comparison, festivals in Zagreb and Opatija had at least slightly opened door for something slightly radical but on Split everybody toed the line. 

Highlights on 1971. festival were two completely opposite sides of the spectrum, like two bookends pointing at somewhat contradictory directions where Split festival could possibly continue. "Proplakat će zora" was classic, old fashioned weepie about unrequited love that always worked so well on this festival and since it followed every known rule from the book, it was enthusiastically welcomed by audience conditioned for such material - it also made a superstar of Mišo Kovač who from than on basically built his enormously successful career out of this kind of music. "48 uri kad bi traja dan" on the other hand, was a true pop hit that one could dance to and is by far the most modern sounding song on the whole festival, performed with irresistible casual charm by great Đorđi Peruzović who is in fact, the real reason to listen the whole record today. Its very interesting to speculate how would direction of the whole enterprise continue if artists and composers followed this lead, however Split festival continued well-trodden path of schlagers with local twist and public usually responded warmly to it.

Between these two, other artists are interesting only as historical artifacts representing what Croatian popular music was back than - waltzing trough songs about loving parents, little boats, big boats, sailor sons and husbands, they emote theatrically and no doubt listeners enjoyed them but none is outstanding as aforementioned examples. People as Vice Vukov, Miro Ungar, Tereza Kesovija and Radojka Šverko seem perfectly content riding the waves of hugely orchestrated melodies, while younger artists with rock background Krunoslav Kićo Slabinac and Josipa Lisac bravely try to fit in all of this but they don't really belong here. Only pop band Pro Arte approaches pop sensibility but their song is just masked like pop, in its heart this is still pure schlager with maudlin lyrics. Several artists not represented on this LP got their own singles (Bojan Kodrić, Ibrica Jusić, Novi Fosili).