Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo


Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo is the eighth studio album by Yugoslav rock band Bijelo Dugme, released in 1986.
Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo is the band's first album recorded with vocalist Alen Islamović, who came to the band as replacement for Mladen Vojičić "Tifa". It is also the band's first album since 1977 live album Koncert kod Hajdučke česme to feature keyboardist Laza Ristovski as the official member of the band and the band's last studio album to feature keyboardist Vlado Pravdić.
The album was polled in 1998 as the 53rd on the list of 100 greatest Yugoslav rock and pop albums in the book .

Background and recording

New singer: Alen Islamović

vocalist Alen Islamović, who took over as Bijelo Dugme's singer in early fall 1986, had been unsuccessfully pursued two years earlier by the band's leader Goran Bregović in the immediate aftermath of long-time vocalist Željko Bebek's spring 1984 departure from the band. Unsure about volatile internal relations within the band and fearing Bebek's possible return into the fold, Islamović had decided to turn the offer down at the time and stay with Divlje Jagode; twenty-three-year-old upstart Mladen "Tifa" Vojičić thus became Bijelo Dugme's new vocalist, recording a studio album, 1984's Bijelo Dugme, with the band.
Under the pressure of professional obligations, sudden fame, and media scandal that revealed his LSD usage, Vojičić left Bijelo Dugme after only a year, and Divlje Jagode's Islamović got approached once again about joining. This time, Divlje Jagode were based out of London, pursuing an international career under the modified name Wild Strawberries. Doubting Divlje Jagode's international prospects, 29-year-old Islamović decided to take the offer this time, leaving Wild Strawberries and returning to Yugoslavia to join Bijelo Dugme. Talking about the second vocalist change in two years and the band's personnel issues in general, Bregović stated at the time:

(Self)-censorship

Due to political pressure by Yugoslav authorities, Bregović would eventually give up on implementing some of the ideas he had originally envisioned for the album.
When he began putting it together, Bregović wanted Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo to contain contributions from individuals known for holding political views outside of SFR Yugoslavia's official ideology as espoused by the Yugoslav Communist League, the only legally allowed political party in the country. To that end, he and the band's manager Raka Marić approached three such individuals who had at that point been effectively proscribed from public discourse in Yugoslavia for over a decade:
Bregović's idea was to have Vukov sing the "Ružica si bila, sada više nisi" ballad. However, despite Vukov accepting, the plan never got implemented after the band's manager Marić got detained and interrogated by the police at the Sarajevo Airport upon returning from Zagreb where he had met with Vukov. Mića Popović's contribution to the album was to be his Dve godine garancije painting featuring a pensioner sleeping on a park bench while using pages of Politika newspaper as blanket to warm himself, which Bregović wanted to use as the album cover. When approached, Mića Popović also accepted though warning Bregović of possible problems the musician would likely face. Finally, Koča Popović was reportedly somewhat receptive to the idea of participating on the album, but still turned the offer down.
Eventually, under pressure from the band's record label, Diskoton, Bregović gave up on his original idea, instead turning to alternative solutions. He decided to secure at least one old pre-World War II Yugoslav revolutionary's appearance on the album. Reaching out to surviving individuals of that ilk was done through Duga journalist and writer Milomir Marić who had been known for keeping contacts with them as part of the preparatory work for his upcoming book Deca komunizma. Bregović was able to get 73-year-old Svetozar Vukmanović Tempo to agree, visiting him in his Reževići home and arranging for Tempo to come to Sarajevo, where he recorded the old revolutionary song "Padaj silo i nepravdo" along with the Ljubica Ivezić orphanage choir.
Keyboardist Laza Ristovski, who left Bijelo Dugme in 1978, participated in the recording of Bijelo Dugme, but became an official member of the band once again only after the album was released. Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo was the first Bijelo Dugme release since 1977 live album Koncert kod Hajdučke česme to feature Ristovski as an official member.
Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo featured similar folk-oriented pop rock sound as Bijelo Dugme, and was similarly inspired by Yugoslavism, containing numerous references to Yugoslav unity as well as the lyrics on the inner sleeve printed in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
The album cover featured a photograph of Chinese social realist ballet.

Track listing

All songs written by Goran Bregović, except where noted

Personnel

The album's main hits were pop song "Hajdemo u planine", "Noćas je k'o lubenica pun mjesec iznad Bosne", "A i ti me iznevjeri" and ballads "Te noći kad umrem, kad odem, kad me ne bude" and "Ružica si bila, sada više nisi". The promotional tour was very successful.

Bregović vs. Dragan Kremer

Large section of the critics, however, disliked Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo. In his Danas review, Dragan Kremer drew parallels between the developing economic and political crisis in SFR Yugoslavia and what he sees to be the band's ongoing creative crisis:
In 1987, Kremer went further while appearing as guest on TV Sarajevo's show Mit mjeseca, a programme pitting Yugoslav rock critics against the country's rock stars — allowing critics to directly pose questions to musicians sitting across from them in the same studio. In the case of Kremer's appearance, Bregović wasn't in the studio due to being on tour — Kremer's taped questions were thus shown to Bregović while his reaction was filmed. Expressing his dislike of the band's new album, Kremer looked into the camera and addressed Bregović directly:
Upon stating the above, Kremer tore up the Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo album cover. A visibly angry Bregović reacted by cursing under his breath and launching into an insult-laden tirade directed at Kramer: "It's hard, even for a fool, to harbour ambitions of being liked by everyone, especially by these kinds of fat little pigs with sideburns who probably still masturbate on a regular basis in their forties. Even asking me to answer this pile of imbecilic questions, I mean.... But there's something that doesn't make sense here: we're about to go on a tour with 400,000 copies of this album already sold, which guys like this crap on regularly. So, either the people are fools, which would make what this guy's saying right or I'm still better at writing songs than he is at writing reviews". The incident got a lot of play in the Yugoslav media at the time with the angle of usually calm and collected Bregović losing his temper being the focus.
Vukmanović's appearance on the album was described by The Guardian as "some sort of Bregović's coup d'état".

Legacy

Alongside Plavi Orkestar's Smrt fašizmu! and Merlin's Teško meni sa tobom , Pljuni i zapjevaj, moja Jugoslavijo has occasionally been categorized as part of New Partisans, a mid-1980s collection of albums by Sarajevo-based bands, featuring sound centered on the Balkan folk-inspired rock music as well as containing lyrical and visual references to Yugoslavism within communist and socialist patriotic framework.
The term New Partisans got introduced during fall 1986 by Plavi Orkestar's manager Malkolm Muharem during Smrt fašizmu!s promotional cycle as means of promoting his clients' latest release and potentially jump starting another cultural movement, similar to what he had participated in achieving three years earlier with the New Primitives. Unlike the New Primitive bands that all came from similar background and were of the same generation, the supposed New Partisan bands were much more disparate. Though the New Partisans never took off as a coherent movement, the term got picked up by numerous Yugoslav journalists who continue to use it when describing various phases in Bijelo Dugme's, Dino Merlin's, and Plavi Orkestar's respective careers.
In 1998, the Pljuni i zapjevaj moja Jugoslavijo'' album was ranked 53rd on the list of 100 greatest Yugoslav rock and pop albums in the book '.

Covers