Doe-eyed Croatian pop star, born in
1972 in the
Dalmatian city of
Split. Severina Vučković (who performs without her surname) is now one of the best-known singers in
Croatia, and also in
Slovenia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Serbia and Montenegro, even though her career in Croatia only began in
1991, after the old
Yugoslavia had started to break up.
Severina's first real impact on the Croatian scene was made with her
1993 album
Dalmatinka (
Dalmatian woman), a mixed bag containing soft ballads like the title track, a cover of a
Goran Bregović oldie and a version of
Maria Cristina.
Her
Alanis Morrissette phase of the late 1990s can't be said to have been quite as successful, although her
1998 hit
Djevojka sa sela (
Village girl) became the unofficial anthem of the
Croatian football team in the
1998 World Cup.
Severina returned to form in
1999 with her CD
Ja samo pjevam (
I'm only singing), which more or less returned to the
Dalmatinka formula: an emotional
ballad or two, a touch of disco-
kitsch, a 1980s cover for the
Yugo-nostalgics out there and the requisite cod-
Latino oddity (in this case a gossiping ditty about one
Esmeralda).
She tried to enter the
Eurovision Song Contest in
2000, via Croatia's mammoth
preselection, but fell foul of an
apparatchik by the name of
Ksenija Urličić who vetoed her song's lyrics as they were first submitted because they originally contained a line about
tequila.
Regardless of Madame Urličić, it's nonetheless been uphill from there, with her latest album
Pogled ispod obrva still a strong seller in Croatia more than a year after its release.
Pogled adds into the mix several songs with a feel of
Russian pop about them, and as long as you bought it after July 2001, contains Seve's career highlight so far: the Dalmatian ballad
Virujen u te with which she won Croatia's biggest pop festival
Melodije Hrvatskog Jadrana.
Severina likes to change her image on a regular basis, as long as it still involves lashings of
eyeliner. For
Pogled she hit the
peroxide and made much of a fortuitously placed
beauty spot. More recently she's become inseparable from her
bowler hat. Don't let this put you off, but catch her in the wrong light and she can be a ringer for
Cherie Blair.
Seve's also something of a
gay icon, in Croatia and elsewhere. She once told a Croatian magazine that she was propositioned by a woman after she'd been performing in a
gay club in
Ljubljana, but turned her down, perhaps unfortunately for some.
shallot says re Severina: "as long as it includes lashings of eyeliner"? nono. you're missing the point. it's the cleavage that is unchanged. :>