Talents and Disappointments

Recently I got opportunity to listen to Nera, the very first CD by Nera Stipičević (Nera Stipicevic), one of the more popular and successful contestants of Story Supernova Music Talents show. I have to say that my feelings towards the CD are mixed. The CD as a whole sounds like some strange compromise between jazz/lounge and turbo-folk with occasional and unfortunate mixing with world ethno music. But the most disappointing of all are the lyrics.

This explains why many of successful and ultra-popular music talents contestants have great difficulties in their quest to become genuine pop stars. They gained their popularity by doing covers of already popular songs. For example, Nera is magnificent when she is doing Edith Piaf's classic Johnny Tu N'Es Pas Un Ange. When she has to deliver lines like those in Ponoć (Ponoc) or Vatra, result is pathetic in comparison. Of course, it is too much to expect someone like Burt Bacharach to take care of Nera's very first album, but disappointment is there nevertheless.

Another problem for music talents show winners of Croatia is establishment's perception of their success being solely result of their good looks and fan base being limited to children and teenagers. This is the reason why Saša Lozar (Sasa Lozar), Tin Samardžić (Tin Samardzic) and Damir Kedžo (Damir Kedzo) became a boy band. Just like in the case of Nera Stipičević, few video clips played on Nova TV left much to be desired.

Their summer tour on Adriatic apparently left even more to be desired. They were scheduled to have 29 concerts. They did only 10. After having smaller crowds than expected and Saša Lozar's girlfriend serving as ticket attendant, three Croatian pop stars have terminated their relationship with managers Duško Srijemac and Denis Kadić (Denis Kadic).

All those problems didn't discourage other music talents stars to follow their example and multiply their fame by appearing as band. Ivana Marić (Ivana Maric), Pamela Ramljak and Neda Parmać (Neda Parmac) – finalists of Hrvatski idol – are supposed to start girl band called "Feminnem".