Old pop festivals - Split '72

This is official LP album with studio recordings of new songs promoted on pop festival Split '72 - however, it doesn't really represent the cream of the crop because most promising, memorable and catchiest material was released as hit singles and there were around dozen of them (including biggest hit "Di si bija kad je grmilo" by charismatic Đorđi Peruzović) so perhaps this is not really correct description of what was really happening that year in Split. Considering that commercially appealing radio hits were elsewhere, this could be interpreted as somewhat misleading collection, nevertheless it has been saved for posterity but listener needs to understand the concept - big hits on singles, the rest here on LP album.

Even without important songs missing, we still have handful of classics: composer Đelo Jusić tailored lovely "Noćna muzika" for quasi-renaissance band Dubrovački Trubaduri and Mladi Batali brought real pop hit "100.000.000" on a stage basically set for MOR schlagers. The rest is not by any means bad, its just not particularly outstanding - selected artists were ubiquitous at the time and they all have their routine (slowly building crescendo) but there is one name we need to highlight and this is sandpaper-voiced Toma Bebić who is such an oddity and eccentric that in this schmaltzy surroundings he appears like a Martian. Bebić was local artist with cult following who never really had a chance in this circus but his songwriting and personality are incredibly appealing and it seems he was simply born too early - like some Croatian version of Tom Waits he would be enormously successful today but back in 1972 he was oddball. Zvonko Špišić is also slightly interesting but his song sounds too much like derived from Charles Aznavour to my ears. For real music archaeologists I suggest to track down a single from Split '72 recorded by young debutant from Sarajevo Zdravko Čolić ("Stara pisma ") not because its exceptional - it follows every cliché in the book - but because its interesting to hear him moment before he exploded as a supernova. Here he was still relatively unknown but just a year later Čolić was a household name with legion of frenzied following.