To my biggest joy, I discovered that my all-time favourite singer, Croatian über diva Josipa Lisac gets a lot of media attention recently because of highly publicised celebrations of 50 years in the business. Earlier this year I noticed with alarm that she is getting a little bit long in the tooth (she is approaching 70th birthday slowly) and wondered what does it mean for her personally, being such veteran in the show business focused on young people but I shouldn't have worried because Croatians apparently love her more than ever these days and it seems that finally majority of people accepted what I knew from the start - that she is out national treasure.
Several things happened almost simultaneously: Lisac was guest performer in another high-voltage collaboration, this time with cutting edge band "Chui" which was surprisingly strong song indeed. It actually reminded me on her early 1970s collaborations with group "Mi", that's how good it was. Than she got award for being on a scene for half a century from Croatian Musicians Union (HGU) and this comes from her colleagues. Recently she released another compilation, this time long-awaited double CD thematically divided between her various collaborations with almost entire Croatian pop scene and ethno recordings recorded trough the years. (I have almost all of them, of course and could add several more numbers to the list) but to me this feels more like a tiding up the archives than a new project. If you ask me, my dream project would have been luxurious CD box with completely unheard music, like her recordings from the choir days or demo tracks for rock operas composed by her late husband Karlo Metikoš (she sang on demo tracks) or live recordings from USA, these all exist and just wait for someone to wrap them up in a proper cellophane. (I have actually dreamed once that there is whole unreleased LP from mid-1970s somewhere in the vaults and I never heard of it - you can imagine my confusion when I woke up and realised it was only a dream) Simultaneously with this new compilation, Lisac guested in another high-profile cameo appearance, this time with rock band "Hladno pivo" and to top it all, she sold out Zagreb's concert hall "Vatroslav Lisinski" without any posters or promotion (except on the web) in only 48 hours for two nights in a row.
The interest for one & only homegrown rock icon was so huge that surely several different generations filled the seats and naturally Lisac did not disappoint when it came to extravagant stage outfits and supersonic vocals. I was on another part of the world but present in spirit.
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