2005-01-11

After Ceca, Ceca

I will be the first to say that I expected more from the mighty BBC than an article of vague generalities and quotations from two sources. But Matt Prodger's short piece does have a couple of delicious lines from Ceca.

First, explaining her domestic popularity: "Greeks listen to Greek music. Italians listen to Italian music. And Serbs listen to me. It's to do with national identity. Britney Spears and Madonna could never be a success here like I am."

Second, waving aside any association with the things she is associated with: "I don't know what they're talking about. I don't sing songs about nationalism. I only sing about love. And besides, Milosevic has been gone for four years, and I'm still here."

Very nice. Now go listen instead to "Uslovna sloboda" by Jarboli.

3 comments:

Bora Zivkovic said...

I wonder how many of your readers "got" the title:
I posle Cece, Ceca!

Anonymous said...

I did.

Jail hasn't slowed her down, BTW -- she's turning it into a Johnny Cash kinda thing. Authentic, you know.

She did a private party in Montenegro New Year's Eve; rumor was that she was paid 100,000 Euros for the gig. Many in Belgrade found this plausible.

Agreed, that the Beeb article was pretty feeble -- seemed to be missing its second page. The Ceca phenomenon is a useful barometer. As long as her star is high, things ain't right in Serbia.


Doug M.

Eric Gordy said...

Yeah, I think that at this point she is more "tragic woman who has been through everything" than she is "public face of the new criminal class." That's very marketable in show business of course.
I'm not sure I agree with Doug about the barometer thing, though. I'm more inclined to think that the time when she had very powerful capabilities of representation has passed, and that now she is just a singer. On the other hand, there seems to be an explosion of interest in her by international media--The Guardian, Spin, BBC, and soon GQ.