Slovenia vs. Croatia at the World Cup

Croatia failed to qualify for the World Cup. Their neighbors (and former Yugoslavian brothers) to the north, Slovenia, unexpectedly did. This Slovenian flag from the World Cup in South Africa reads, "Greetings to Zagreb." Thanks to Urška, who found it here.

Slovenia must beat the USA on Friday in order to have a shot at advancing beyond Group C. It seems reasonable to assume that England will win its next two (Algeria, Slovenia) and that Algeria will lose its next two (to England and the USA). Under those scenarios, a tie score on Friday between Slovenia and the USA will not be enough to allow the plucky little upstart to advance.

Football Has Arrived in America

At last, the World Cup is huge in the USA. Eight years ago, at the Brewhouse Cafe in Atlanta (perhaps the premier soccer-watching venue in this city), only a small and devoted group of nerds showed up to watch the finals (I among them). Today the place was a madhouse. Standing room-only, packed like sardines, sweating so much in the rowdy crowd that MY FINGERS PRUNED as we cheered ourselves hoarse to England vs. USA. Spectrum of race and gender represented, hundreds on the premises--maybe a thousand--all screaming themselves silly when Robert Green made an error for the ages.

Deafening chants of "The queen is a slut" and "Fuck BP" induced tears of joy as I realized that America had finally produced its first real football hooligans. Thrown ice cubes and splashes of ice water delivered by whirling towels and cupped hands were greeted by all with pleasure as each drop of water seemed to lower our soaring body temperatures by 10 degrees in the sweltering tent.

Brewhouse was not ready for the massive crowd; some serving areas ran out of beer half an hour before the match, lines were immobile. So a friend and I bought a six pack across the street and smuggled it in easily. Brewhouse made no money from us, or probably many other patrons today. Tip to Brewhouse: lots of cans, quick and easy to dispense (ditch the pours), no broken glass.

I never had imagined that in my own lifetime I would witness the explosion of football in the states. Absolutely amazing.

10 Days with Europe's Top 10 Pop Music Scenes. #1.

Number 1: Estonia. 14.17% GREEN (14.17% of that country's charting songs earned top marks on my spreadsheet)

Yoda once said, "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For we shall soon establish that my size has little bearing on my abilities. For the size of one—" and on and on he droned. But he had a point. Estonia, a nation of 1.3 million, tops my list.¹

Estonia borders Russia by land, but Finland is just a short hop across the Baltic. Estonia caters to a small Russian music scene, but it is clear that on a cultural level Estonians relate most to their Scandinavian neighbors (by contrast, Latvia and Lithuania feature far more Russian product on their charts and Russian attitude in their own songs).

Sometimes Estonia and Finland seem to be participating in a music-exchange program. Estonia's Y2K-era Eurodance hitmaker Caater partnered a lot with Finland's K-System, and in 2006 Finnish metal legends Nightwish chose to unveil their new singer at a secret gig in Tallinn.

But Estonia's artists are pursuing their own weird and wonderful agenda. They remind me a bit of the quirky introverts in Iceland's music scene. However, the Estonians seem to be having more fun.

Throughout Europe you see too many MCs who continue to party like it's 1999, bland rock bands rewriting the same old tunes, beautiful young women warbling torturous confessional ballads, and how many leggy girl groups does the world need, anyway?

Estonia, by contrast, keeps looking ahead (their leggy girl group, Vanilla Ninja, threw in the towel years ago), and they tackle things with a spry spirit of inventiveness. They are fond of electronic sounds, and so am I, hence my chart bias. Consider one of my favorite songs, the HU?'s "Sa meeldid mulle," which, in addition to exhibiting the verse/chorus/verse appeal of a catchy pop song, might also be the most beautiful drum & bass tune I have ever heard.

Their music scene's independent streak befits a country that, in going its own way, has become the clear economic leader of the Baltic region (they will adopt the euro in 2011). Estonian software developers gave us Skype. Estonia's March 2007 parliamentary elections "were the first in the world to include voting via the Internet."^{2 3} Estonia is also "the least religious country in the world" which, from my atheistic perspective, is also appealing.

So it's time you hugged an Estonian—if you are fortunate enough to find one.

The following list includes an Estonian Idol winner warbling something more appropriate for a NYC art band, a Eurovision song contest entry that sounds like something cooked-up by Brian Eno, and two groups featuring hot chicks and violins. Heck, I even tossed in a song from a former Vanilla Ninja-er.

Birgit Õigemeel - Moonduja
Glow - Kui möödud sa (Feat Kelly)
HU? & Kare Kauks - Miks mõni asi on nii hea
Laura feat Tafenau - Lihtsad asjad
Lenna Kuurmaa - Rapunzel
Malcolm Lincoln - Siren
Mimicry - Right Back Home
Urban Symphony - Päikese poole
Vaiko Eplik & Eliit - Kosmoseodüsseia
Violina - Sellel ööl (feat Lenna Kuurmaa)

¹ A future essay will examine the relationship between size of population and the quality of a country's pop music scene.

² Nations in Transit (2008 Edition). Freedom House. p.221

³ Newsweek's Steven Levy, in a Washington Post piece called "Pay Per Gig" published 30 January 2008, wrote that "in terms of penetration, we are in 24th place -- behind Estonia -- in the international broadband competition." I really hate that sort of writing. It attempts to shock the reader into saying, "We're behind ESTONIA!??!" when the reader 1) probably knows nothing about Estonia and 2) if he or she did, would realize that it is quite reasonable for that country to have a decent level of broadband saturation. The real point, of course, is that the USA is in 24th place--but why piss on Estonia to drive that home? Perhaps this is why Newsweek's fortunes have fallen so far in 2010. See also Michael Moore's condescending treatment of Slovenia in the movie Sicko, where he announced with comparable dumb incredulousness that the USA was "just slightly ahead of Slovenia" in terms of the quality of its health care.



The rest of the best:

#2: Finland
#3: Croatia
#4: Slovakia
#5: Bulgaria
#6: Sweden
#7: Lithuania
#8: Ukraine
#9: Slovenia
#10: The Netherlands

10 Days with Europe's Top 10 Pop Music Scenes. #2.

Number 2: Finland. 12.24% GREEN (12.24% of that country's charting songs earned top marks on my spreadsheet)

The Finns are famous for their metal music scene, which garnered Euro-wide attention when Lordi became the least-likely band in Eurovision history ever to win the contest. The Finnish metal scene supports several subgenres, including Viking metal and folk metal. Nightwish are one of the most popular metal bands in Europe, although their diction is sometimes a bit off.

The Finns also appreciate the sort of Eurodum-dum-dance music I like, not to mention straight-up rock 'n' roll.

Some tracks from the last couple of years:

Aste - Poikkeus Sääntöön
Dacia - Liikaa Sulta Odotin (Dance Mix)
Deck Jagger - Gay Clubs Are Better
Jenni Vartiainen - En Haluu Kuolla Tänä Yönä
Stratovarius - Deep Unknown
Turmion Kätilöt - Verkko Heiluu
Uniklubi - Kukka
Waldo's People - Lose Control


The list so far:

#3: Croatia
#4: Slovakia
#5: Bulgaria
#6: Sweden
#7: Lithuania
#8: Ukraine
#9: Slovenia
#10: The Netherlands

10 Days with Europe's Top 10 Pop Music Scenes. #3.

Number 3: Croatia. 11.11% GREEN (11.11% of that country's charting songs earned top marks on my spreadsheet)

The majority of my three months in Europe earlier this year was spent in Croatia. You've got your beautiful girls, friendly people, and myriad places to enjoy a beer (I recommend paying the relatively steep admission fee in order to enjoy one or three atop Dubrovnik's ancient walls overlooking the Adriatic). I posted several blog entries about my Croatian experiences a couple months back, but for those in need of immediate direction I will emphasize this link to a description of my favorite night out in Zagreb.

Croatia is blessed with plenty of coastline, which is something of a sore point to some of the neighboring countries. "The Mediterranean as it once was," goes the brilliantly accurate (and thus oft-cited) tourist bureau quote. Indeed, it is hard to find reminders of the war-ravaged Croatia "as it once was" only a decade ago. If you wish to wade into that, I highly recommend Slavenka Drakulić's affecting The Balkan Express, a used copy of which you can track down for literally pennies on Amazon.com.

Nobody's music better romanticizes the appeal of coastal Croatian living in the former Yugoslavia days than Oliver Dragojević's. Track down a greatest hits collection from this guy.

Oliver made a name for himself at the Split Song Festival (many of his 70s records allude to the festival, usually with the word SPLIT followed by the year the song was performed there). That festival continues to this day, and focuses on Croatian talent (a bit like Italy's San Remo festival). For the more internationally-minded, there is the Soundwave Festival, which was enthusiastically mentioned to me by more than a few Croatians. This July's Soundwave event is already sold out.

Because of the small populations of the former Yugoslav republics and their close proximity to one another, big-name artists don't see much point in touring the entirety of the Balkans, so they often just play Zagreb.

Croatia's music scene is wonderful, but before any of you Croatians out there get too big-headed, let me remind you that not long ago you were doing things like this. ;-)

Some tracks from the last couple of years:

Bijelo dugme - Hajdemo u planine (Karma Remix)
Dus and Kristijan Beluhan - Kao Nekad
Elemental - Nema Ga
Gibonni - Žeđam
Hari and Nina - Ne Mogu Ti Reći Što Je Tuga
Putokazi - Dvojnica
And as a bonus, I recorded some live, more traditional music in Zagreb back in March for your listening pleasure


The rest of the countdown so far:

#4: Slovakia
#5: Bulgaria
#6: Sweden
#7: Lithuania
#8: Ukraine
#9: Slovenia
#10: The Netherlands

10 Days with Europe's Top 10 Pop Music Scenes. #4.

Are you beginning to see a pattern? I promise to reveal all in a future analysis of just how things wound up the way they did. For now, we continue our countdown.

Number 4: Slovakia. 9.93% GREEN (9.93% of that country's charting songs earned top marks on my spreadsheet)

Despite having been conjoined as "Czechoslovakia" for most of the 20th century, the now-separated Czech Republic and Slovakia cannot be culturally lumped together. A fair number of Czech and Slovak musicians surface on both country's pop charts, but most artists from those countries are more likely to appear on only one chart or the other. Last night I reviewed the last five weeks of both countries' top 100 charts and found that they had only 28% of their songs in common with one another during that period.

Both countries' local music scenes are characterized by a more laid-back, Central European sound, which is to say a greater emphasis on rock and jazz influences--very little in the way of ostentation or flash. One might say that the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia are more inclined to "play it safe" with their pop; I'd say they exhibit class, subtlety, and tasteful restraint. (Of course, as with all music scenes, rowdier exceptions pop up from time to time to liven up the proceedings.)

It's when you also consider the international artists appearing on their pop charts that Slovakia winds up with a definite edge, charts-wise, over its neighbors. I fiddled with music chart spreadsheets in an effort to determine the reasons for Slovakia's superiority over the Czech Republic, and I even examined both countries' demographics seeking clues (perhaps the higher level of "fun" on Slovakia's charts is a reflection of Slovakia's lower average age and higher birth rate?), but I couldn't make any convincing correlations. It seems the Slovakian pop chart is just more enjoyable for me on some subjective level that cannot be quantified. However, I did uncover one demerit for the Czech Republic.*

Some tracks from the last couple of years, plus a bonus 2006 number from Dara Rolins, since it's one of my favorite trash tunes:

Dara Rolins and Robo Papp - Chuť si ťa nájde
Knechtová Katka - Môj Bože
Kristína - Horehronie
PapaJaM - Nemusíš Sa Bá
Zdenka Predná - Kam Má Ísť?

* "In the summer of 2008, the Czech Radio Board terminated Radio Wave, which had catered to a younger audience. Council members’ arguments against the station—based partly on an incorrect translation of one supposedly corruptive song—indicated an overall lack of tolerance for alternative music and lifestyles." (from pages 191-192 of the 2009 edition of Nations in Transit, Freedom House's annual review of levels of freedom in Eastern European and Eurasian countries). The "supposedly corruptive song" was alleged by the Council to be fascist propaganda. It was Scottish rock band Primal Scream's "Swastika Eyes," which, despite the exciting title, is certainly not a fascist song. However, it may be dangerously groovy.


The rest of the countdown so far:

#5: Bulgaria
#6: Sweden
#7: Lithuania
#8: Ukraine
#9: Slovenia
#10: The Netherlands

10 Days with Europe's Top 10 Pop Music Scenes. #5.

Number 5: Bulgaria. 9.56% GREEN (9.56% of that country's charting songs earned top marks on my spreadsheet)

If this ranking system were based upon each country's pop contributions to the rest of the world, yesterday's number 6, Sweden, would have been Number 1. But that's not how I'm doing things. Instead, I am looking at the entertainment value provided by various countries' pop charts as a whole, and only from the last couple years, based on how the numbers came out on my spreadsheet of 9000 songs. By those measures, Bulgaria and four other countries outrank Sweden.

Not that the Bulgarian music scene needs apologizing for. It's a lively and varied thing, unabashedly fun and astonishingly varied. The rich diversity of sound may be a byproduct of Bulgaria's geography; it lies at perhaps the greatest crossroads of Europe, bordering such varied countries as Turkey, Romania, Serbia, FYR Macedonia, and Greece. All these cultures are reflected in their music.

Bulgaria's artists are willing and able to tackle anything from rap to breakbeats, and their chalga music is one of the catchier forms of the too-maligned turbo-folk offshoots in the Balkans. (Perhaps chalga benefits from direct contact with the neighboring Turkish music scene. It also packs a lot more percussive oomph than, say, Romania's manele scene to the north.) Sometimes Bulgarian artists mash the ethnic and dancefloor elements together with great finesse, as this--maybe the coolest Eurovision song of all time--demonstrates.*

Like the neighboring Romanians, Bulgarians have an appreciation for catchy dancefloor tracks, but whereas Romania has fallen in love with its own style of icy, minimal techno-pop (and lately has put a few too many eggs in that one basket), the Bulgarians seem to be better-rounded music appreciators.

In addition to their own country's music, the Bulgarian music charts also introduced me to such diverse non-Bulgarian fare as Alexandra Burke's "All Night Long (Cahill Edit)" and Kasabian's "Fire." Even a popular South Korean pop star called BoA landed on the Bulgarian chart recently. And despite the usual homophobia one unfortunately comes to expect in Southeastern Europe, the Bulgarian people are not afraid to court a little controversy on their music charts.

Some tracks from the last couple of years:

Deep Zone Project - DJ Take Me Away
Kamelia - Useshtam te oshte
Mastilo - Dumite
Miro and Krum - V Edno Ogledalo (Salma Ya Salama)
Upsurt - Doping Test
Ustata and Sofi Marinova - Bate Shefe

* They came in 5th.


The rest of the countdown so far:

#6: Sweden
#7: Lithuania
#8: Ukraine
#9: Slovenia
#10: The Netherlands