#sanja ilic & balkanika

[secret-gaygents-blog]

thank you for tagging me, this took like forever but i'm done and found songs i more or less listen to

S - Spirit in the Sky (KEiiNO)

E - Enchanté (Dirt Poor Robins)

C - Choose Your Fighter (Ava Maxx)

R - Rise Like A Phoenix (Conchita Wurst)

E - Enchanted (Taylor Swift)

T - TFTF (La Zarra)

G - GASOLINE (Maneskin)

A - Ai Coracau (Mimicat)

Y - You Love Me (Cornelia Jakobs)

G - Greensleeves (Karliene)

E - Évidemment (La Zarra)

N - Nova Deca (Sanja Ilic & Balkanika)

T - Tudo au Ar (Mimicat)

S - saudade, saudade (MARO)

B - Bye, Bye, Bye (TEYA, SALENA)

L - Lights Off (We Are Domi)

O - O Jardim (Claudia Pascoal, Isaura)

G - Gladiator (Jann)

i'll tag @marliba04 and @yourmum2004

URL song tag game

thank youuu @yesireadbooks

RULES: spell your url with song titles and then tag as many people as there are letters.

*dramatically removes the cloth from the board*

AHEM

F- family line by conan gray

I- idontwannabeyouanymore by billie eilish

R-run and hide by sabrina carpenter

E-exile by Taylor swift

-

B-boys will be bugs by cavetown

U-until i found you by stephen sanchez and em beihold

T-tennis court by lorde

-

A-almost is never enough by ariana grande

S- strawberry blond by mitski

H-habits by tove lo

E-easier than lying by halsey

S- seventeen by ryan mccartan and barrett wilbert weed (from heathers the musical) -

T-this december by ricky montgomery

O-o my heart by mother mother

O-overwhelmed by royal and the serpent

oh my god 15 letters that was long.

@holdmyteaplease @spicymochi @guessillcallitart @escapetheinevitable @cabbojage @maewrites13 @macabremoons @briannaswords @tea-and-mercury @ashwithapen @blackcrxwking @lycaens @iannicellis @anonymousfoz @fioreshere

(did i choose specifically people with relatively long urls? yes.)

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 155 - 150

155. Milan Stankovic - “Ovo je Balkan” Serbia 2010

Fun fact: one of my (straight female) friends has a MASSIVE crush on Milan Stankovic. Yes, THIS thing:

We stan questionable straight women’s taste <3 

As for “Ovo je Balkan” The Song, it is one of those entries that are deliberately made as annoying as possible but I am mostly amused? Christmas elf-looking creature who prances around in a hideous, half-bedazzled dinner jacket. <3 The score is a banquet of honking noises, schlager beats and obnoxious autotune fillers <3 "Ovo je Balkan” just feels so quintessentially Eurotrash and for that I’ll always cherish it.

________________________________________________________________

154. Ivi Adamou - “La La love” Cyprus 2012

“NAFINK TUFERR ... WILE U ARNERRRR.”

I know that “La La love” has a lot of fans, and it isn’t hard to see why: The song is pretty good: Three minutes of unbridled fun descended from Eurotrash heaven. <3 The choreography is darling, as is Ivi Adamou’s lovable diction <3 Standing on top a giant table made from books <3 Another tragic victim of Crystal Arena acoustics.  😭

________________________________________________________________

153. Eleftheria Eleftheriou - “Aphrodisiac” Greece 2013

In a reserve of “La la love”, the selling point here is actually Eleftheria’s live and not the song. “Aphrodisiac” is servicable, but inferior to “La la love”. However, I think Eleftheria has a more engaging live performance charm than Ivi does, so I like her slightly more.🤗  Like Venus birthed from the clam, so did Eleftheria emerge as a wonderful throwback to the mini-skirted, hairflipping Eastern European slutpop DIVA.

Mind, like most contestants in 2012, Eleftheria was REALLY bad on the night, but in such a legendary fashion that I now refer to the common Greek practice of “burying bad lead vocals under backings” as “Eleftheria’ing”. The voiceover work is so meticulously done it sounds like a doppler-shifted fire alarm <3 RIP my sweet discount Foureira.

________________________________________________________________

152. Balkanika - “Nova deca” Serbia 2018

 [2018 review here]

GO GO BALKAN RANGERS

Bless Serbia for that one time they shirked their Joksimovic traditions for a megamix of millenium-old music <3

Bear with me for a sec. “Nova deca” is NOT a song that I hold very dear in my heart. It features several Balkan musical tropes and coalesces them into a giant bloated mess. I like the historical aspect of it all, but I never connected with the song. Still haven’t, in fact.

However, I love what Balkanika have done with it. What an endearing bunch of weirdo’s <3

Gallavanting around the stage in black shawls and cloaks, making yoga poses, performing their hackneyed choreography with so much gusto <3 

THE BEST ONE, and this cannot be stressed enough, IS THE RASFLUTIN-LOOKING FLUTE PLAYER. He isn’t show at a gif-worthy angle but pay attention to him and be rewarded with endless laffos <3 We love you Ljubomir <3

Balkanika have so much earnest commitment to the Fertility Cult concept of their staging that it also rubs off on me. I may not love the entry itself, but I do appreciate the collective effort delivered here. They 1) believed in it and 2) just rolled with it, and that’s how you Eurovision a song. 🤗

_______________________________________________________________

151. Filipa Azevedo - “Há dias assim” Portugal 2010

Remember when Portugal had a three-year qualification streak? It is SO painful that Portugal, one of my favourite Eurovision countries, has only TWO qualifiers in this decade and one of them is S******r. 😣

Which is why we must all cherish the other Portuguese qualifier because I think "Há dias assim” is kind of really underrated. It’s the same deal as Tamara Todevska for me: Filipa just generally outsold her lowtempo song by injecting her heart into it. It transforms “Há dias assim” into a lovely song with an undercurrent of fierceness and saudade. 

I personally find Filipa even better than Tamara though, because there is an evolution here: Filipa is visibly nervous at the start and overcomes them midway the performance, proving to the world that she’s both human and confident. If I don’t care about the song, the least I can be given is a personal connection with the performer so I can root for their success and that’s precisely what has happened here ^_^

Whoa we’re already at 150? Lol. Only 30-60 days worth of updates left to go. 😬

[eurovisionopinions]

[xelothen]

Also, have some happy Serbians dancing to San Marino! (x)

[arabela25]

Eurovision Song Contest 2018 countdown: 11 days left!

Nova Deca - Sanja Ilić & Balkanika, Serbia        [x]

[lianaofrome]

How weird is that my first reaction to the Serbians is that they look like out of Yonderland? Like seriously, I've been even assingning them their corrspondent Idiot. Bearded Guy is Larry Brunette lady is Jim on a drag Blonde lady is Martha Shades and gold shoulders is Ben Big collar is Simon And Hoodie is Mat

[usstatesofsong]

2018 Eurovision Song Reviews - Serbia

Semifinal 2, #3 - SERBIA Sanja Ilic & Balkanika - Nova deca

Guys… GUYS. This song! It’s my guilty pleasure of the year that I cannot stop playing :)

Typically I struggle to put into words my feelings toward ethnically Balkan entries. It’s still not an area of the world I know much about (but would love to find more!) Anyway, I was happy to hear that Serbia was reigniting their National Selection, Beovizija, for this year’s entry. I was even MORE surprised when I heard the winning entry for the first time, and then it wedged itself inside that part of my brain I reserve for loving new age and world music. Apparently there was some drama surrounding their victory; well, go read another blog post. I’m laying down the praise!

Balkanika are the two female (Danica and Nevena) and one male singer (Mladen) plus the Einstein-looking flute guy (Ljubomir), percussionist Aleksandar, and … mastermind? … Sanja Ilic. He actually has an intriguing history with Eurovision that dates back to the 1980s! He helped write “Halo, halo” which … I’ll be honest, isn’t that good, but it’s amusing to watch.

The Wikipedia page describes their sound as “folktronica.” In that way, “Nova deca” (English: “New generation”) approaches Balkan music differently. The first minute is an introduction, really… nothing but Ljubomir’s flute, Danica’s voice instrumentalized, and assumedly Sanja’s composition/main contribution. It’s MY FAVORITE EVER because it feels so different; like you’re floating on a wave. Some people say the intro’s too long - well, be patient; it’s fantastic. Then Mladen’s voice breaks in with the chorus as though I’ve begun my adventure into the world. It’s so freaking epic!!

The closest thing the Eurovision world has seen to this is perhaps Bulgaria 2007, but I’m thinking back to the 1990s, in winning entries like Norway’s 1995 masterpiece, or Belgium 2003. There’s a large group of people who enjoy the ethnic eccentricities put on display during ESC, and Serbia brings that to us in 2018 in a similar way that Greece or Armenia does on the regular.

Candidly speaking, listeners may find Danica’s consistent vocals and “warbling” grating, as it’s again not used so much for vocals as it is an instrument. I see the argument being made here - it was my one turn-off initially that has since subsided but affected the final score.

In short, I call this my ‘guilty pleasure’ because it doesn’t stand a great chance at qualifying, but it’s a personal favorite. I’m *not* going to over-prepare myself for failure like Finland last year… so hopefully Europe surprises me? …. Please?

My Rating: 7-7.5/10 Ranking: 7th of 43

[nickelhatton]

Review: Sanja Ilic and Balkanika- 'Nova Deca' (Serbia)

Review: Sanja Ilic and Balkanika- ‘Nova Deca’ (Serbia)

Artist: Sanja Ilic and Balkanika Song: Nova Deca Country: Serbia Rating: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ Ranking: 37th Betting Odds: 251/1 (more…)

[eurovision]

Sanja Ilic & Balkanika representarán a Serbia en Eurovision 2018 con “Nova Deca”

Tras la preselección serbia organizada por la RTS (televisión pública del país) en la que 17 eran las canciones aspirantes a representar al territorio en Eurovision 2018, ya hay elección.

Con los votos de jurado y público, Sanja Ilic & Balkanika cantarán el tema “Nova Deca”.

Recordemos que Serbia participará en la segunda semifinal de Eurovision 2018 que tendrá lugar el 10 de mayo.

[losazaego]

Ne pitaj me što sam plakala, ja sam tebe dragi svu noć čekala.

Za kraj

[unibrowzz]

Serbia? Or Montenegro? What are your opinions on their joint entries BTW? I think there were two?

Slow down lad, I can only do five videos on one post remember? 😂 But I can do three entries I like from Serbia, one entry I actually remember from Montenegro and I’ll tack the other two onto the end. 

(She says, having thought there would be just five songs on this post because she forgot how to count to six apparently)

Anyways, songs, songs....

SERBIA

3) 2018- Sanja Ilic & Balkanika- “Nova Deca”

I can’t be the only one who thinks this sounds like a killer anime theme song right?

2) 2015- Bojana Stamenov- “Beauty Never Lies”

Who would’ve thought this mod would fall for a generic “I’m different and that’s good” club song?

1) 2007- Marija Serifovic- “Molitva”

LET’S GET DOWN TO BASICS! TO COMPLETE! THIS ASSSSSSK

Ahem, onto the one entry I remember from Montenegro...

MONTENEGRO

2014- Sergej Ćetković- “Moj Svijet”

Well, it’s their only entry to have ever qualified iirc, it must have some broader appeal.... And it worked on me so who knows  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, song reviews.... gonna put this under the cut to stop this post from being a bastard and a half to scroll through 😅

Serbia & Montenegro 2004- Željko Joksimović & Ad Hoc Orchestra- “Lane moje”

This feels like one of those songs that’s clearly got a demographic and a target audience who stan the absolute Hell out of it... But it just doesn’t grab me in the same way. It’s a nice, relaxing song of course, the singing’s good considering this was the era where the singing was starting to become less and less in tune, but there isn’t much here that would make me come back to it any time soon after finishing this ask. Hell, I doubt I’ll remember the tune by the time I’m done reviewing the next song

Serbia & Montenegro 2005- No Name- “Zauvijek moja”

HEY GUESS WHO CAN’T FUCKING COUNT.

Anyways, this one started out promising. That intro had me hooked. And then the violins started and this turned into a generic desert-themed background music from a video game. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that I immediately forgot the tune as soon as it was over and I immediately put on the Snif City theme from Paper Mario.  Which is a song I’d definitely recommend you go listen to.

Cheers for the ask! And cheers for reading if you got this far ;D

[borisbubbles]

16. SERBIA

Balkanika - “Nova Deca” 19th place

Out of all the positive morphs I experienced this year, Serbia was the one that I suspected the least. I never hated them the way others did, but eh, I didn’t think highly of them either. Especially when the backstage clips showed them enterting the stage dressed up like members of some inauspicious fertility cult. “Oh.” I thought. “Another Genealogy. Except it won’t make the final. Whatever, NEXT”

How wrong I was though, because it did qualify and caused me to re-evaluate all I knew about life and come to the fucking conclusion that... this is really fucking good??? HOW is an exaggerated mess that has accurately been described as “Balkan Megamix Volume 3″ this great? 

I actually don’t have a clear answer for this as i’m writing this down (we haven’t reached the songs I would spam the replay button on yet), but the core of it is that Balkanika tried REALLY hard to condense 900+ years worth of Balkanic musical tradition in a mere three minutes and fucking pulled it off by... striking battle poses like some Ethno-Power Rangers

GO GO BALKAN RANGERS!!!

The choreography as a whole is just so extra and beautifully overacted. The entire way through, the members of Balkanika strike poses as if in Madonna’s “Vogue”, guided on by the beguiling tunes conjured by Ljubomir’s magic whistle-wand [ed.: here’s the best gif i could make of Old Rasflutin’s background flailing, but it’s way funnier if you pay attention to his presence as you watch “Nova Deca” unfold, so SCROLL UP AND REWATCH RIGHT NAO!!!]:   

Such a beautiful presence we’re not worthy of, y’all. All while the rest of Balkanika are either serving some epic 90 Percussion realness:

or chanelling some Project: Waters of Life sillyness

This could have so easily turned into a San Marinese goopy mess (which I don’t think too highly of, as you know), and briefly it looked like this would be the case; Instead, we found something better.

The plain answer however, lies in that Balkanika didn’t try to be funny and that makes a massive difference. Every piece of overacting, from Mladen’s creepy stares to Ra-Ra-Rasflutin (Serbia’s greatest love machine) prodding the action on from the background, is the product of intense belief and dedication, which... makes it hysterical, but in an endearing sort of way. Balkanika really just can’t help themselves. <3 

However, as I have to take things into account other than just act, I can’t really drag Balkanika much higher than this. Their song, while cool in concept, is kinda a bit too overloaded with quirks, which are largely lost to me because you know, show-stopping staging. (lol I just realized this is such a reverse “O jardim”, how neat they will now be forever ranked next to one another in this ranking). “Nova Deca” also suffers from the fact that I already had a large slew of other faves before I started to love them. As a whole, I think they have the least to offer of those left in the ranking. Oh well, at least we’ll forever have this: 

<3

RANKING SO FAR:

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES (optional)

1) I decided not to credit Sanja Ilic simply because he wasn’t on the stage and I feel it’s kinda unfair to credit him just based on his merit as a composer, while Isaura composed AND performed second fiddle to Cláudia, without a letter of on-screen credit. 

2) Re: Intentional vs Unintentional humour: The reason why intentional humour rarely works for me is that it comes with the built-in pressure to laugh, which... makes me less inclined to find something funny because it kinda takes away the choice element of it. Like, I think I have a fairly okay sense of humour, I can decide for myself what I find funny, you know? This is why intentional humour rarely works for me, while unintentional humour nearly always does. For reference, dial back to where I ranked Israel and Norway and Czechia and San Marino (or “Yodel it” and “Space” from last year), all acts that piggybacked on scripted humour

3) DoReDos are one of the few instances this year where intentional humour totally worked for me, although I also realize they’ve largely been hit-or-miss. But we won’t be discussing that soon.

4) Me being a history nerd, I also think the idea of “weaving a song out of literally every Serbian musical quirk ever” is a really cool song concept. It really comes close to an earnest, Balkanic version of “Swedish Smörgåsbord”  <3 5) “Nova Deca” is a way more accurate representation of what actual balkan music sounds like (as opposed to the tiresome, tedious, boring Balkan Ballad). The Folk music channels in Bulgaria, for instance play “Nova Deca”-esque songs all day.   6) A funny argument between my mom and I occured during this song. My mom, who is Bulgarian, argued that Balkanika plagiarized their song from Bulgarian Polyphonic Singing. When I pointed out the song was based on the Byzantine musical traditions, she claimed that the Byzantines stole them from the Bulgarians, which is historically implausible (see note 8). This is one of many reasons I think little of ethnocentrism and nationalism, especially from the Slavs and Greeks. Everyone accuses one another of cultural appropriation (see again: Macedoniagate), when in fact, their geographical proximity exposed them to similar cultural ideas and their geopolitics (warmongering) turned it into a mutually unintelligible wash. 

7) Besides, the entire point of the Balkans is that they support each other due to their cultural similarities in spite of wishing horrific, painful deaths on one another.  <3

8) HISTORY LESSONS WITH BORIS #1: Polyphonic Singing.  Polyphonic singing evolved as a Byzantine response to Roman Catholic liturgical chanting (instituted by Charlemagne, who as Holy Roman Emperor, took measures in making the religion more accessible to the common folk. How do we make the Bible popular? By teaching rich people how to read! What a genius. <3 ). Thus, polyphony spread as Byzantine Christianity spread, which would later become Eastern Orthodoxy after the East-West Schism in the 11th century AD. (hence why polyphony is such a big cultural benchmark all Eastern Orthodox nations, including Russia and Georgia, but not Armenia until their annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th Century AD (since Armenian Christianity is a cadet branch of Oriental Orthodoxy, which split from Catholicism in the 4th century AD).  Anyway, Bulgaria historically played a massive role in spreading Christianity and its liturgical chanting to their pagan Balkan neighbours, after the Bulgarian Knyaz (a fancy way of saying “Khan”) Boris I converted under the pressure of Byzantine Emperor Michael III. Boris (whom, as you might have guessed, I was named after) used Christianity to pacify the squabbling lords of his realm (which included both pagans and Catholics) and oversaw the creation of the Glagolitic (liturgical) and Cyrrilic scripts to speed up the spread, paving the way for Bulgaria’s Golden Age under his son Simeon. During that Golden Age, btw, much of what is now Serbia came under Bulgarian control, including Belgrade.  So while the Serbs probably did learn polyphony from the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians absolutely, totally, learned it from the Byzantines, who invented the damn’ thing, in their own spin on Charlemagne’s popular church choirs. Mum, you’re WRONG. O:-)

[guysofeurovision]

Best Serbian entries? I'd say Marija Šerifović, Željko Joksimović (both 2004&2012), and Nevena Božović too. BALKAN POWER!🇷🇸

I usually love Balkan sounds and drama in Serbian and neighboring countries’ music :)  You pointed out three of this country’s best entries, no doubt, but I also like Sanja Ilic & Balkanika (2018) and have a soft spot for the song Oro from 2008.

[eurovisionopinions]

[xelothen]

Our Serbian cheer squad is getting pretty personal.