Serbia

Artist Bio
Serbia’s entry for the 2009 Eurovision song contest is performed by Marko Kon & Milaan. Marko Kon serves as both a lyricist and composer for Serbia’s 2009 entry and makes his debut as a lead vocalist in this performance. Despite the fact that Marko Kon is a poly-instrumentalist who employs the musical qualities of the saxophone, guitar, bass, drums and clarinet and has more experience as a back up vocalist, the heavy bass in his voice pairs well with the obscure tonalities of the song in a poppy and melodic sort of way. Another composer and lyricist to Serbia’s hit song for 2009 is Alecksander Kobac, who interestingly does not partake in its performance. Milan Nikolic competes for his country in this piece both as a composer and accordionist. Milan has repeatedly been acknowledged as the best accordionist in Serbia and has produced five solo albums. This song is a culmination of these artist’s efforts in working together over the past couple of years.

There are three back up singers for the shoe song, their names are Ljubisa Dincic, Igor Knezevic and Jovan Sejnjanovic. These characters are easily distinguished from the rest of the group in their matching suits and white sunglasses. All three of them have extensive experience in singing or other various stage arts; however one of them, Jovan, is a founding member of the Arts & Noma Association, which operates to protect the rights of musicians and stop piracy. Katarina Gromilic is the only silent performer in the group but is easily the most charismatic because she is a ballet dancing philosophy student who has participated in the last two years of Eurovision and performed with Marija Serifovic in 2007 to help lead Serbia to a Eurovision Song Contest victory. []

Song Information
The song being performed by Serbia is titled “Cipela” or “Shoe” in English. Marko Kon, Aleksandar Kobac, and Milan Nikolic wrote the piece, combining styles to make the unique performance. The song is in Serbian and is about the effects of materialism. Kon describes the genre of the piece as a “specific mixture of pop, rock and folk music. http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/13720

The [|lyrics] of the piece are fitting for an international competition because they are about the global idea of materialism. Kon wears the shoe referred to in the title as he is walking away from a failed romance. He had a girlfriend who only was interested in his money and now that she has spent it he is out in the street. The Serbian version has only three basic verses that make up the whole piece. The first is about walking with his old shoe, the second about being a fool for falling for the woman, and the third about how she was just using him for his money. The [|English version] tells more of a story by adding more details with each refrain while there is still a reoccurring chorus.

The music is an interesting mix of traditional and global pop music. The main musical feature of the piece is the accordion, as played by Milan Nikolic. The accordion is a very popular instrument in the Balkans and is played in the highly melismatic style of the folk music from the region. The rest of the instrumental accompaniment is electronic drums and synths which brings the song to a more popular global level. The electronic instruments are just in the background playing chords and a beat so that they do not get in the way of the live performers. Marko Kon’s voice is distinctively low in pitch, as he usually performs as a backup singer. He is supported by three backup singers.

One of the most talked-about aspects of the song is its staging, which is an important part of the performance. Each performer enters individually, starting with Nikolic. Kon enters with a suitcase and sets it next to Nikolic. When the backup singers start singing, they begin to do some strange movements around the stage. Kon then tips Nikolic. Finally the ritzy ballerina enters very pompously and briefly dances with Kon before giving him the cold shoulder. While these aspects all support the song, much discussion has been placed over the screens in the background which show some very cheesy graphics

Narrative of the Entry
After hosting the 2008 Eurovision contest in Belgrade, Serbia had to select different artists and a new song for 2009. In order to do this, they chose the winner from the annual Beovizija Music Festival, the event in which the artist [|Jelena Tomasevic] won in 2008 and qualified to represent Serbia.The music festival is funded and set up by the [|Radio Television of Serbia].In the contest there are 20 songs which qualify for the semi finals which then are voted upon by viewers via text messages and a panel of judges, each giving 50 percent of the score for every artist. Marko Kon and Milan Nikolić were voted into the finals after finishing fourth in the semi finals after the fans voted in a 10 score but the judges gave them a 1 for what they thought was a poor performance. The Finals Table: (Found on Wikipedia [|here:])
 * Final - 8 March, 2009**||
 * 1 || [|Oscar] & [|Beauty Queens] feat. Đorđe Marjanović || "Superstar" || — || 12 ||
 * 2 || Danijel Pavlović & [|Milica] || "H8ER" || — || 07 ||
 * 3 || [|Sonja Bakić] || "Ništa novo" || Nothing new || 01 ||
 * 4 || Saška Janković || "Nauči me" || Teach me || 06 ||
 * 5 || Dušan Zrnić || "Tvoje drugo ime je greh" || Your other name is sin || 10 ||
 * 6 || Marko Kon & Milan Nikolić || "Cipela" || Shoe || 19 ||
 * 7 || [|OT Bend] feat. [|Kaya] || "Blagoslov za kraj" || A Blessing for the end || 17 ||
 * 8 || Andrej Ilić || "Nemam te" || Without you || 06 ||
 * 9 || Etar || "Sanjaj me" || Dream me || 15 ||
 * 10 || Pozitivan haos || "Gloria" || — || 12 ||
 * 11 || [|Ivana Selakov] || "Moje odbrane" || My protecitions || 11 ||

In the finals ten artists performed and were rated the same as the previous round. A scoring error during the semi final with the viewer voting allowed there to be 12 artists in the final round but only Ivana Selakov chose to perform. Marko Kon and Milan Nikolić had a wonderful performance which blew away both the judges and the audience giving them a final score of 19, 7 from the viewers and 12 from the judges. Although the judges favorite, they only narrowly beat out OT Bend and his song [|"Blagoslov za kraj]", which drew the most votes from the viewers but fell short with the judges. Marko Kon was not only honored to become the representative but also he felt pride in his composition because one of the judges, [|Zeljko Joksimovic], had muchadmiration for not only the composition but Marko as a composer. Joksimovic was 2004 Serbian Eurovision representative and considered one of the greatest music composers in Eurovision history.

On May 14th in Moscow the voting for the Semi Final 2 group took place leaving Serbia with not enough votes to move onto the finals. (Points were not shown) The performance can be seen here:media type="youtube" key="l1PFIju4yTM" height="344" width="425"

Serbian's Eurovision History
The Eurovision song contest will see it’s third Serbian entrant in 2009. [|Serbia] had previously participated in the contest as part of [|Yugoslavia] from 1961 until 1992. Yugoslavia was the name for the political entity that unified the Balkan region during most of the 20th century. When the Balkan region faced upheaval in the 1990’s Serbia didn’t partake in the competition until 2004 when it joined with Montenegro until 2006. In 2007, Serbia debuted as its own independent country in the contest. Serbia has had only two contestants to it's name in the contest, but both have placed in the top 10. Their 2009 entry is expected to continue this tradition.

In 2007, Serbia won the contest with the song “Molitva” by [|Marija Šerifović]. “Moltiva ,” is a ballad that translates to the word “prayer” in English. The performance had limited dance routines and was the first time that a ballad won since telephone voting began. The celebration of the first win by Serbia was soon questioned by the Albanian team, who argued that the song was plagiarized from one of their artists, but the claims were denied.

The performance can be seen here:media type="youtube" key="0Sp9OOoxCJo" height="344" width="425"

In 2008, Serbia's entry was the song "Oro," sung by [|Jelena Tomasevic]. Since the previous year Serbia won the contest, she was automatically placed in the finals and finished placing 6th among 25 of her competitors. In 2005 she represented Serbia in hopes of going on to represent Serbia and Montenegro in the Eurovision song contest. Her loss was controversial despite the fact that Montenegro judges failed to award her any points.

Serbia has demonstrated a strong connection to other eastern European countries as evident in the voting break down. Serbia has given the most votes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Hungary and Greece. In return, Serbia has received the most votes from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Slovenia and Switzerland. The results from the important competition reflect the politics in the region. First, these countries have experienced similar histories relating to their past associations with Yugoslavia, and they are located in close proximity to each other. Bosnia was part of the former Yugoslavian country like Serbia. The Bosnian language is also spoken in parts of Serbia.