"Alfons Vučer Gold Collection" - Tribute to great Croatian composer (2012)

Long gone are the days when "Jugoton" (now "Croatia records") was the major player in local, homegrown discography and the prestigious lighthouse attracting biggest names in the music business (hell, this company was the music business) - cataclysmic changes that completely transformed the society, demographics, politics and music itself, reduced this giant to all sorts of Gold or Platinum collections, thematic compilations and such. Milking the archives and scrapping the bottoms is not bad in itself, since it introduces audience to our venerable predecessors, but its alarming if we don't have new young talents who should built their own legend (starlets promoted on TV talent shows are here today and forgotten tomorrow). This particular compilation - long overdue, by the way - shows that decades ago this same territory cultivated highly sophisticated music that was exciting and inspired as anything on international scene.

One of the biggest movers and shakers on 1960s pop festivals was composer Alfons Vučer who is the main hero of this compilation. Nowadays we think of him as distant forerunner and relic of some other times, but back than he was in his early twenties: the first hit that opens this chronological collection was composed when Vučer was only twenty three. In fact, it seems that everybody was incredibly young - all those now-classic names and artists listed here were very much hungry and green, their group photos looks like any school class on bus excursion. For a decade or so, Vučer was invincible - he was by far one of the most prolific, creative and award-winning people in the business, even if you are not familiar with his name, you know that irresistible, lilting waltz "Zagreb, Zagreb"  that became unofficial hymn to the town. Because his music was tailored for particular pop festival stages and had to conform to certain three-minute frame, it sounds charmingly quaint today but nevertheless, songs are ebullient, sparkling and quite unforgettable. It helps that voices Vučer used were exceptionally gifted artists, in fact the list of names looks like who's who of the biggest stars back than (from Ivo Robić and Gabi Novak, to Đorđe Marjanović, Vice Vukov, Lola Novaković and beyond) - apparently they all grew up (so to speak) together, building local pop music - and themselves, in process - by joining forces.

Because his star burned its brightest during golden era of pop festivals (with huge orchestrations, conductors and whole shebang), Vučer is forever associated with 1960s. Often he was called Croatian Burt Bacharach although - as time will unfortunately prove - he is much closer to our local homegrown version of Phil Spector. Crossing that thin line between genius and madness, Vučer will eventually descent into abyss but that part of the story has nothing to do with music he created previously - he should be remember the way he once was, in his twenties, full of inspiration and spark, when music flew out of him. This collection is genuinely impeccable as his testament.