Odbrana i poslednji dani
Encyclopedia
Odbrana i poslednji dani (Serbian Cyrillic: Одбрана и последњи дани; trans. The Defense and the Last Days) is the first studio album by former Yugoslavn New Wave
Yugoslav New Wave
New Wave in Yugoslavia was the New Wave music scene of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...

 band Idoli released in 1982.

Džuboks magazine critics voted the album the greatest Yugoslav rock album of the 20th century in 1985. The album was polled in 1998 as Yugoslav greatest popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 album in the book YU 100: najbolji albumi jugoslovenske rok i pop muzike
YU 100: najbolji albumi jugoslovenske rok i pop muzike
YU 100: najbolji albumi jugoslovenske rok i pop muzike is a book by Duško Antonić and Danilo Štrbac...

(YU 100: The Best albums of Yugoslav pop and rock music).

Overview

The band started recording their first long play album during autumn 1981. The record was originally supposed to be produced by the band members themselves with the assistance of Dušan "Spira" Mihajlović, however, Mihajlović soon left the recording sessions, so the album recordings were produced only with help from Mile "Pile" Miletić and Goran Vejvoda
Goran Vejvoda
Goran Vejvoda is an English-born, French-based, media artist ....

. The band's initial plan was an album dealing with religion and tradition, which was seen as potentially provocative due to many aspects of these topics still being a taboo in communist Yugoslavia's public sphere at the time. This was the first release that included a lineup change as Kokan Popović who used to play with Vlada Divljan
Vlada Divljan
Vladimir "Vlada" Divljan , is a Serbian singer and songwriter. He is known as the frontman for the Serbian and former Yugoslav rock band Idoli, as well as for his solo works.-Early activity:...

 and Zdenko Kolar in Zvuk Ulice now joined Idoli as their new drummer.

The record was named after Borislav Pekić
Borislav Pekic
Borislav Pekić was a Serbian writer. He was born in 1930, to a prominent family in Montenegro, at that time part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1945 until his immigration to London in 1971, he lived in Belgrade...

's 1977 novel Odbrana i poslednji dani.

Entering the studio, the band members still weren't entirely clear on what they wanted to do, either stylistically or musically. They had many ideas (within the specific context of Pekić's work, and also in broader philosophical scope), but turning them into music and finding satisfactory sound presented a challenge. Due to this experimental trial-and-error approach, the recording process ended up taking almost six months.

Since Idoli were already well-known and popular all across the country, the recording process was documented in Yugoslav media whose many print outlets wondered about the group's creative potential and ability to cope with such ambitious project in light of the fact that it's taking them so long to record the album.

Beside the guitar, Divljan also played the piano, while Šaper played keyboards and synthesizers. Guest appearances featured Goran Vejvoda (Casio synthesizer on "Kenozoik" and "Odbrana" in addition to guitar on "Gde si sad cica-maco"), Mile "Pile" Miletić (guitar solo on "Gde si sad cica-maco"), and Bebi Dol (backing vocals on "Odbrana"). The track "Senke su drugačije" featured Vuk Vujačić (saxophone), Goran Grbić (trumpet) and Slobodan Grozdanović (trombone).

Since the recording process lasted way too long for Jugoton
Jugoton
Jugoton was the largest record label and chain record store in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia based in Zagreb, Socialist Republic of Croatia. After the breakup of Yugoslavia the company continued to work in independent Republic of Croatia under the name Croatia...

's liking, the label wanted to release the album as soon as possible. The record came out very quickly in early 1982. Unlike the band's previous releases, which were well accepted both commercially and critically, the new album had the critics divided with reactions ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. Since the band wanted to present the record as non-commercial, no promotional videos were recorded for the album. Fifty thousand copies of the album were sold in Yugoslavia, which was in sharp contrast to the band's previous release, the VIS Idoli
VIS Idoli (EP)
VIS Idoli was the first and only EP by the Serbian new wave band Idoli. The cover of the EP is the Red Nude, an act by Amedeo Modigliani.- History :...

EP, that sold roughly 200,000 copies. This resulted the stylistic change of the next album the band recorded.

Album cover and design

It is often said that the original album cover was supposed to be a reproduction of the Mileševa monastery
Mileševa monastery
Mileševa is a Serbian Orthodox monastery located near Prijepolje, in southwest Serbia. It was founded by King Vladislav, in the years between 1234 and 1236...

 fresco "White Angel
White Angel
White Angel is a detail of a world famous fresco from the Mileševa monastery circa 1230 AD in Serbia, Mironosnice na Hristovom grobu . It is also one of the most famous frescoes in Serbian culture. It depicts an angel sitting in front of the tomb of Christ...

". Džuboks magazine even published an article about the upcoming Idoli album with the reproduction as the album cover, but Vlada Divljan
Vlada Divljan
Vladimir "Vlada" Divljan , is a Serbian singer and songwriter. He is known as the frontman for the Serbian and former Yugoslav rock band Idoli, as well as for his solo works.-Early activity:...

 has recently squashed such rumours stating that this was never supposed to be the cover, adding that he never liked that idea, even as a rumour. He also explained that it would've been a bit much had they ever thought of choosing it for the cover since the album itself contains lyrics that can be considered rather blasphemous.

It was further rumoured that Jugoton did not agree with the cover, considering it provocative in communist Yugoslavia where religion was very much suppressed. As the alternate solution, photographer and designer Goranka Matić, who did the cover, went to the National Museum
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 and took the photo which was used as the album cover. It was chosen to be a cloth detail from a Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...

 icon. Many people also found he shape of the pattern to be similar to the Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...

 and thought it was used as a topic on the album, but Divljan stated that any resemblance of the Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...

 was unintentional and that people were reading too much into it.

The back cover was a detail from a golden background of the icon. The inner sleeve featured a classical civil photo of the band on the left side and a similar photo of the guests and people involved with the recording on the right side.

The font used on the record was a Cyrillic font similar to the one used in the Miroslav's Gospel
Miroslav's Gospel
Miroslav Gospels is a 362-page illuminated manuscript Gospel Book on parchment with very rich decorations. It is one of the oldest surviving documents written in Old Church Slavonic, along with the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja...

. The re-release of the album did not feature Cyrillic letters except for the front cover. Also the names were misspelled and thus the album was called Obrana i posljednji dani, Joca Višković became Joca Đisković, Dragutin Vulinović was changed to Dragutin Đulinović.

Album concept

The story of the album was inspired by a Borislav Pekić
Borislav Pekic
Borislav Pekić was a Serbian writer. He was born in 1930, to a prominent family in Montenegro, at that time part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. From 1945 until his immigration to London in 1971, he lived in Belgrade...

 book Odbrana i poslednji dani. The novel is a comical view on a man who was a lifeguard on the Tisa river during the last years of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The man, not very educated, got arrested because he found his first drowned victim, a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 soldier. The story of the novel continues with presenting and making fun of his internal conflicts due to his lack of knowledge and a macho attitude. Idoli used the mental state of this man who was disoriented and confused with his surroundings and moved it to the urban background and the present moment (used in the song "Kenozoik"). At any point the story of the novel is connected to the album story as the band focused only on the psychological approach of the novel.

The song "Poslednji dani" (originally entitled "Maršal") represents a man who feels very joyous and romantic at night, a time when his hidden personality shows up. Unlike the man in the novel, who loves the river and enjoys spending time at the empty river bank as the river is his "God", the man in the song loves his Marshall
Marshal of Yugoslavia
Marshal of Yugoslavia was the highest rank of Yugoslav People's Army , and, simultaneously, a Yugoslav honorific title...

 (Tito) who is his "God". The record company did not agree with the last verse of the song as it was directly referring to Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...

 so the band had to change the song title and remove the last verse.

"Moja si" is one of the strangest Idoli songs. The main character personality becomes divided, and his male personality becomes substituted with a female. In the mirror he sees a woman he would like to be, filled with strange comparisons and statements that shows a deep psychological disorder, which in a different form happened to the main character of the novel.

"Senke su drugačije" present a man determined to leave home. He feels a complete alienation in his surroundings, but is also afraid to leave as the paths are "narrow and dangerous". The structure of the song is keyboard and brass oriented with a march rhythm. In the novel the main character was forced to go to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The story continues with "Nemo" in which the man is completely occupied with the thoughts of the place he is in and continues wandering in the world he can not adopt to.

The next two tracks deal with a complete opposition to the main character in the novel. The first "Rusija" is a romantic ballad about a college student who lives in an apartment with his girlfriend which is a very strong working-class girl. The main character in the novel did not study and did not like dancing which is the topic of "Igrale se delije", a rockabilly song which calls everyone to dance. The backing vocals lyrics include "Igrale se delije nasred zemlje Srbije" which was a popular folk song during the World War II.

"Jedina (Uzurlikzurli)" is a rockabilly song which tells the story of a man who would like to tell a girl he loves her but has a problem doing it. "Odbrana" (originally entitled "Isus je naš maj") is a sophisticated song about a lonely man who is far away from everything he loves and who misses his old life by the river. "Glavna ptica (skrati svoj dugački jezik)" is talking about barricades, tear-gas, road blocks which are connected to war, the man in the novel could not understand.

Live performances

Following the release of the album, the band went on tour, but the new album did not reach the audience as their previous releases. The only song which was well accepted by the audience was "Kenozoik" which was usually played first on live appearances.

One of the first live shows the band did was in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

 club Kulušić
Kulušić
Kulušić was a Yugoslav Concert Club in Zagreb, Croatia, which hosted many famous international acts and all the important acts from the region. It is particularly associated with the Yugoslav New Wave acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many Live albums which today are part of the Ex-Yugoslav...

 where Dragan Vulinović, who worked in Radio Belgrade
Radio Belgrade
Radio Belgrade is a state-owned and operated radio station in Belgrade, Serbia.The predecessor of Radio Beograd, Radio Beograd-Rakovica, started its program in 1924 and was a part of a state wireless telegraph station. Radio Beograd, AD started in March 1929...

 as sound engineer, dressed in black and holding a thurible
Thurible
A thurible is a metal censer suspended from chains, in which incense is burned during worship services. It is used in the Catholic Church as well as in Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, some Lutheran, Old Catholic, and in various Gnostic Churches. It is also used...

 containing incence
Religious use of incense
Religious use of incense has its origins in antiquity. The burned incense may be intended as a sacrificial offering to various deity or to serve as an aid in prayer.- Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto in Asia:...

 was walking along the stage as a thurifer. In Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 instead of Vulinović this job was given to a girl. The reaction of the critics to using orthodox elements on concerts was described as "Rock with the smell of incence
Religious use of incense
Religious use of incense has its origins in antiquity. The burned incense may be intended as a sacrificial offering to various deity or to serve as an aid in prayer.- Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto in Asia:...

". The shows lasted for more than two hours and had several encore calls.

Since Idoli never recorded a live album and live bootleg recordings are very rare, there are no live recordings from this tour. Vlada Divljan with his Old Stars Band often performs songs from Odbrana i poslednji dani and most of the songs from the album appeared on his live album Odbrana i zaštita in 1996.

Accolades

  • It was pronounced the best album and the best album design of the year 1982.
  • Odbrana i poslednji dani was one of the few Yugoslav albums reviewed by NME
    NME
    The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

    . It received a very positive and affirmative review.
  • In 1983, editors and critics from eight leading European magazines (Actuel, The Face
    The Face (magazine)
    The Face was a British music, fashion and culture monthly magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan.-1980s:Logan had previously created the teen pop magazine Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s before launching The Face in 1980.The magazine was influential in...

    , Wiener, etc.) selected Idoli the third among the ten most promising bands in Europe.
  • In 1985, Džuboks magazine critics voted Odbrana i poslednji dani the best Yugoslav rock album of the 20th century.
  • A special award was given by a French magazine which reviewed the album as one of the best European releases in 1982 along with the releases of Falco
    Falco (musician)
    Johann Hölzel , better known by his stage name Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper. He had several international hits: "Der Kommissar", "Rock Me Amadeus", "Vienna Calling", "Jeanny", "The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home " and posthumously, "Out Of The Dark"...

    , Yello
    Yello
    Yello is a Swiss electronica band consisting of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. They are probably best known for their singles "The Race" and "Oh Yeah", which feature a mix of electronic music and manipulated vocals, as does most of their music....

    , and Depeche Mode
    Depeche Mode
    Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...

    .

Re-release

The album was one of the first Yugoslav rock albums to be re-released on CD in 1990 with the re-release of Paket aranžman
Paket aranžman
Paket aranžman is a New Wave music compilation album released in 1980 by Jugoton and its one of the most important and influential records ever made in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It features the eminent Belgrade artists: Šarlo Akrobata, Električni Orgazam and Idoli...

. Since there were mistakes they did not want to release it until 1992 when a record dealer bought the printed releases and sold them in Belgrade at a very high price. There were 40,000 copies and were sold out in a short period of time. In 2007 the album appeared on Croatia Records
Croatia Records
Croatia Records is the largest major record label in Croatia, based in Dubrava in Zagreb.-Summary:Croatia Records d.d. is a joint stock company currently led by the Chairman of the Board of directors Želimir Babogredac, a notable sound engineer...

' box set VIS Idoli
VIS Idoli (box set)
VIS Idoli is a collection of four albums by Serbian rock band Idoli. The albums included in the set are:* 1981 VIS Idoli * 1982 Odbrana i poslednji dani* 1983 Čokolada...

 featuring all studio efforts except the "Vidici" single.

Track listing

Personnel

  • Vlada Divljan
    Vlada Divljan
    Vladimir "Vlada" Divljan , is a Serbian singer and songwriter. He is known as the frontman for the Serbian and former Yugoslav rock band Idoli, as well as for his solo works.-Early activity:...

     — guitar, piano, vocals
  • Nebojša Krstić
    Nebojša Krstic
    Nebojša Krstić is an Advisor of the President of Serbia for public relations appointed by Boris Tadić. He was also a member of the Serbian rock band Idoli.- Biography :...

     — percussion, vocals
  • Srđan Šaper — synthesizer, vocals
  • Zdenko Kolar
    Zdenko Kolar
    Zdenko Kolar is a Serbian bass guitarist, most notable as the member of Idoli and Zona B.-Biography:Kolar was born in Zemun in 1956 where he lived until 1963 when he moved to inner town in Belgrade. He moved to a building where two of his future bandmates lived, Vlada Divljan and Boža Jovanović...

     — bass
  • Kokan Popović
    Kokan Popovic
    Kokan Popović is a Serbian drummer notable for playing in bands Idoli and Propaganda.- Getting interested in music, first bands :Popović was born in Belgrade and lived at Alekse Nenadovica street connecting "Slavija" and "Metropol" hotel, inhabited by people from highest social positions, such as...

     — drums

Guest musicians

  • Mile Miletić Pile — guitar
  • Goran Vejvoda
    Goran Vejvoda
    Goran Vejvoda is an English-born, French-based, media artist ....

     — guitar, synthesizer
  • Bebi Dol — backing vocals
  • Vuk Vujačić — saxophone
  • Goran Grbić — trumpet
  • Slobodan Grozdanović — trombone

External links and references

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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