Neighbourhood Music

The first major scoop of 24 sata was the story related to Dora, HRT song competition whose winner also becomes Croatian finalist for Eurovision Song Contest. The newspaper alleged that the contest was fixed. Needless to say, this was one extra reason to watch tonight’s Dora final.

However, I still treasure my mental health too much and every now and then I had to switch channels. On Nova TV I noticed Hrvatski idol – horse which has been dead for months – being beaten again.

More interesting was Serbian BK TV where I discovered Idol franchise spreading to Croatian eastern neighbour. I noticed that the show was title simply as Idol, without any national identification. At the end I realised why – competitors came not only from Serbia-Montenegro, but also from Macedonia.

I think this might serve as a survival recipe both for Eurovision Song Contest and Idol franchises in former Yugoslavia. Just like basketball, pop music simply can’t maintain high quality on the miniature markets of former Yugoslav republics. All pop music performers and aspiring stars needs broader audience and those kinds of shows – elevated to supra-national level – might do the trick.

In the meantime, pop music fans of former Yugoslavia are soon going to encounter new ambitious project that treats former federation as one big market. MTV is going to start new channel called MTV Adria, which is going to cover areas of former Yugoslavia. MTV Adria is currently searching for their first VJs.

Many rock critics and cultural commentators see MTV Adria as the last chance for rock and urban culture in former Yugoslavia to turn the tide in their losing battle with “turbo folk”.