BOGINJA

Josipa Lisac paid always due attention to her styling, image and visual design in parallel with her music. During the 1980s she utilized any occasion, be it a TV appearance, a concert or a festival, to present a new make-up and wardrobe design, thus attracting the journalists and tabloids and offering them stories of "constant change" and "search for a true art expression". Unfortunately, this was backed by ever less inspired music, so the expected title of "She-Bowie of Yugoslavia" never quite applied to her.

The 7th studio album "Boginja" ("Goddess") appeared in 1987, four years after the previous album. It represents the peak of her popularity and visual creativity. The album cover depicts Josipa in three different outfits (fold-out cover) with three hairstyles that you expect to see only on the fashion catwalks. OK, David Bowie or Nina Hagen used to display even more outrageous campy images on their album sleeves but, after all, the music is the one that counts. Here, "Boginja" suffers from utter mediocrity and sleazy soft pop, occasionally paired with equally dull R'n'B and techno synth sounds.

Absence of Karlo Metikos, Josipa's longtime companion, producer and composer, is quite apparent (he penned only 2 songs here) so relatively unknown Kresimir Klemencic could not cope with the production and composing tasks in the most satisfactory way. Surely, everything is perfectly played and produced in technical terms but creativity and spontaneity is sacrificed. Notable appearances of Vedran Bozic (ex TIME) on guitar or Davor Cernigoj (latter-day INDEXI) on bass did not help much so the musical virtuosity was nowhere to be heard.

To be sure, the album bore a handful of chart-toppers that remained standard in Josipa's repertoire until now. Soul-pop of the opening title track, arena-rock guitars of "Danas sam luda" ("I'm Crazy Today"), good bass lines of "Dobre vibracije" ("Good Vibrations" - no connection to the BEACH BOYS classic), synthesized pop of "Nismo mi bez cilja" ("We Are Not Aimless") and power ballad "Gdje Dunav ljubi nebo" ("Where Danube Kisses the Skies"). There are even neo-prog hints in "Kraljica divljine" ("The Queen of Wilderness") with guitar solo, but... All this is far, faraway from her best rock, blues and jazz acts in the past. Even the best moments of "Boginja" do not contain much substance for a prog and rock community. Still, it is not a total disaster given the number of hits it made but I would not advise you to approach it.

PERSONAL RATING: 1,5/5

P.A. RATING: 2/5