Belgrade’s New Sound Changes Serbia’s Old Rhythm

Serbia’s pop scene is getting a long overdue facelift, thanks largely to three bands that have snubbed the domestic mould but still managed to climb the charts.

Zemlja Gruva, Sevdah Baby and Svi Na Pod have unrelated pop DNA but jointly form a movement known as the New Sound of Belgrade, with roots in funky, global influences rather than the folk and dance genres that reign supreme in Serbia.

Reggae-inspired Zemlja Gruva is popular among crowds that like to boogie while Sevdah Baby uses house electro beats to create remixes and original tracks for heavy club-goers. Often melancholic Svi Na Pod has the most mature sound, blending a punk undercurrent with a strong disco signature.

The bands’ light tunes appeal to a narrow, urban crowd, prone to rejecting all local music forms save for the alternative bands associated with anti-establishment lyrics. Don’t be surprised if you spot Belgrade scene setters like actor Ivan Jevtovic, a former member of rock band DLM, and artist wife Sandra, losing it on the Belgrade dance floor to Zemlja Gruva.

“People describe our music as fun and light, and as a type that people can dance to,” says Zemlja Gruva’s singer, Constructa. “It leaves an impression that people have to some degree been deprived of this kind of format - that it wasn’t available before.”

Part of the bands’ success is down to their skill in striking a balance between music that is artistic and pure pop, according to Sevdah Baby’s Milan Stankovic, whose audience includes students and club aficionados in their early twenties.  

“These people don’t consume just anything that plays on TV, are a bit picky, but aren’t squeamish about pop,” Stankovic says. “They range from people who enjoy some RnB to others who appreciate a bit of dirty rock at the same time,” adds the man behind Sevdah Baby with a market researcher’s precision.

Although the bands have been mining away at the music scene for years, it wasn’t until 2009 that they began grabbing serious attention. Their eccentric presence, against the backdrop of generic, lab-manufactured bands, soon drew parallels to the now iconic New Wave movement of the early 1980s, also led by a trio of bands: Sarlo Akrobata, Partibrejkersi and Idoli.

“They have added absolutely to the colour and freshness of the scene. Something’s happening, something different, because of them,” says Belgrade music critic Petar Janjatovic, though he says they have yet to prove they merit comparison to the New Wave.

“This whole ‘movement’ could fade away in two years’ time and we may end up looking back and saying, ‘Yes, it looked promising at the time but it just dried up,’” Janjatovic warns.

While Janjatovic is reluctant to credit the bands as pioneers of a pop renaissance, he admits that the last time Serbia saw musical innovation of this kind was back in the early 1990s.

“That was when you had a whole group of indie bands from [the northern province of] Vojvodina like Eva Braun and Veliki Prezir, when Goblini kicked off and Block Out, and so on,” he continues.

“This whole line up sprang up in 1992-93, but then it seemed that rock’n roll went down a rabbit hole for good.”

That musical upsurge, closely associated with the youth rebellion against the nationalist and authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic, fizzled out after Milosevic’s fall on October 5, 2000.

“Just as the focus aimed against it [the Milosevic regime] dwindled, so did the lifespan of the bulk of these bands,” Janjatovic recalls. “And they had no followers to continue the legacy.

“But over the past few years there has been an avalanche of interesting new bands, ranging from the off-the-wall kinds, like Multietnicka Atrakcija and Stuttgart Online, to ones belonging to the pure pop genre, which are the ones we’re talking about. And they appear to have a hunger to expand their fan base.”

Zoe Kidah, Zemlja Gruva’s other vocalist, who is reminiscent of No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani and known for an off-beat style that combines such outfits as sports jackets and leopard print vests, says image has played an important role in their popularity.

“We didn’t present ourselves as a bunch of underground musicians who hadn’t been given a chance to say something,” she says. “We landed on the scene dolled up and with a clear vision of what we wanted to say musically.

“We’ve taken a stand,” Kidah goes on. “The lyrics are based on personal experiences, some are autobiographical, some are a reaction to the reality surrounding us, and others illustrate our daily lives, but we have lived through them all and we stand by them.”

Despite the civil wars that raged in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the sanctions on Serbia that followed, Serbia managed to preserve a small alternative music scene to the turbo folk and dance genres that spread like wildfire at the time.

This marginal scene, consumed by the few members of the urban, educated society that hadn’t fled the country, more often than not took on a grunge, glum, anti-establishment form.

“We’ve had a vacuum till now when it comes to quality pop bands,” says Aleksandar Pavlic, editor of the web magazine Pop Boks, adding that both the media and the audience have grown increasingly tired of the local pop scene.

“After a long wait, we now have bands that are mainstream, but which have good communication with various media as well as a primarily urban audience,” Pavlic adds.

But Serbia’s music scene still has a long way to swim out of its shallow end, Svi Na Pod’s Petar Rudic says. “So, when musically unrelated bands like ours show up, it’s not surprising that the same people listen to all three,” he adds.

Although the three bands lie at opposite ends of the music spectrum, they have collaborated together in the past, which helps explain why the public associates them as part of the same movement.

Despite their strong pop sensibilities, Svi Na Pod is least likely to go down a crowd-pleasing route, the duo’s feisty singer, Bojana Vunturisevic, says.

“I was invited to take part in a cooking show on TV, to cook… but I wouldn’t accept it in my wildest dreams because I’m not a cook,” she recalls. “If anyone is interested in listening to me, I’ll go onto a show to play something and say something intelligent. That is my job.”

EXIT Festival manager Dragan Ambrozic echoes Pavlic, saying the three bands represent a turning point in Serbia’s pop music scene.

“They should be seen as meeting a wider need for ‘smarter’ and more provocative pop music in the local language,” Ambrozic says. “Several other bands and DJs do something similar. They’re all using innovative images to negate Serbia’s superficial, contemporary ‘bubblegum’ pop.

“What’s important to add is the Serbian context - these authors rely on a pop form rooted in a Belgrade tradition of subversive street music, which was influenced by the Seventies’ soul and funk,” he explains.

“They’re an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, they represent a live commentary on a chapter of pop history, and on the other, a modern view of the possible future of local pop music,” Ambrozic says.

This article is funded under the BICCED project, supported by the Swiss Cultural Programme.