40th Anniversary re-release of the best ex-Yugoslavian new wave/alternative album.
Luxury 180g vinyl.
Odbrana i poslednji dani (Serbian Cyrillic: Одбрана и последњи дани; trans. The Defense and the Last Days) is the first studio album by Yugoslav new wave band Idoli released in 1982.
The band started recording their first long play album during autumn 1981. The band’s initial plan was an album dealing with religion and tradition, which was seen as potentially provocative due to many aspects of these topics still being a taboo in communist Yugoslavia’s public sphere at the time.
Entering the studio, the band members still weren’t entirely clear on what they wanted to do, either stylistically or musically. They had many ideas (within the specific context of Pekić’s work, and also in broader philosophical scope), but turning them into music and finding satisfactory sound presented a challenge. Due to this experimental trial-and-error approach, the recording process ended up taking almost six months.
Since Idoli were already well-known and popular all across the country, the recording process was documented in Yugoslav media whose many print outlets wondered about the group’s creative potential and ability to cope with such ambitious project in light of the fact that it’s taking them so long to record the album.
Since the recording process lasted far too long for Jugoton’s liking, the label wanted to release the album as soon as possible. The record came out very quickly in early 1982. Unlike the band’s previous releases, which were well accepted both commercially and critically, the new album had the critics divided with reactions ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. Since the band wanted to present the record as non-commercial, no promotional videos were recorded for the album. Fifty thousand copies of the album were sold in Yugoslavia, which was in sharp contrast to the band’s previous release, the VIS Idoli EP, that sold roughly 200,000 copies. This resulted in the stylistic change of the next album the band recorded.
– Odbrana i poslednji dani was one of the few Yugoslav albums reviewed by NME. It received a very positive
and affirmative review.
– In 1983, editors and critics from eight leading European magazines (Actuel, The Face, Wiener, etc.)
selected Idoli the third among the ten most promising bands in Europe.
– In 1985, Džuboks magazine critics voted Odbrana i poslednji dani the best Yugoslav rock album of the 20th
century.
– A special award was given by a French magazine which reviewed the album as one of the best European
releases in 1982 along with the releases of Falco, Yello, and Depeche Mode.
(Croatia Records)
