Pop Music: The Balkans

Bulgarian Chalga

Andrea & Costi, “Laja Go S Tebe”
As you can see here, Bulgarian Chalga music videos are more modern looking and seem to have better production value than the Romanian ones. The instruments are more synthesized and the beats faster. As in America, sex and money seem to be the big themes of this style of music.

Reyhan, “Kaynana”
This singer, who has since died at the age of 19, was one of the greatest female Chalga voices. Reyhan, who was of Roma descent, sang mostly in Turkish and appeared most often with Orkestar Kristal.

Orkestar Varnentsi, “Tez Cherveni Domati”
Funny video alert! This is a Chalga “oldie.” Here, a local-yokel (hillbilly), is seduced by a fairly unconvincing tranny. Towards the end of the video, the band poses awkwardly for the camera and then decides to jump into the ocean while wearing clothes for no apparent reason.

Gergana, “ledna Vecher”
By far one of the trashiest and over-the-top sexual videos I’ve ever seen. A half-naked, greased up man and woman play with construction equipment in a rock quarry. As a special bonus, there’s some really awesome English rapping in this one as well. “MAXIMUM RESPEK FOR REAL!”

Serbian Turbo-Folk

This controversial style of music has nothing at all to do with Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell but is nonetheless very popular in Serbia and Russia. I really can’t say too much else about it without getting into the politics, except to mention that this style of music and some of the performers have links to the bloody Bosnian war of the early ’90s. So let’s not worry about that and just listen to the music, OK? Even though you can’t understand the words, the beats are good for getting you through a workout or run or something like that. Female singers with chests the size of basketballs, slick graphics, and techno grooves seem to dominate Serbian Turbo-Folk; here are three of the most famous singers to get you started.

WARNING: NOT FOR KIDS OR THOSE EASILY OFFENDED!

Seka Aleksic, “Tamo gde si ti”

Sandra Afrika, “E pa neću”

Ceca Raznatovic, “Znam”

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