Label: Nika Records
Release date: 01.02.2019
Album length: approx. 74 min
Genre: Pop / Rock
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When the conversation turns to Janez Bončina Benč, words simply fail you. You can’t sum up in a single sentence just how important his work has been for the development of Slovenian popular music. Benč is really one of those rocky mountain massifs that the Slovenian music scene rests on, and that it has grown up on since the late sixties (Helioni, Mladi levi), through the seventies (Srce, The Generals, September) and onward right up to today, now that he’s gone down the solo road. In December 2018 Benč turned an enviable seventy, and on February 1, 2019 he marked fifty years of active music-making with a spectacular concert at the Cvetličarna in Ljubljana, where, in front of an incredible crowd, a whole garrison of great musical guests he’s worked with over the decades also bowed to his life’s work. For the occasion, Nika Records put out a new compilation CD called »Biografija«.
Over his long and creative career, Benč has touched almost every major musical genre, all of which, in the melting pot of mutual fusion and arranging finesse, can always gravitate toward pop rock. With him you’ll find jazz, blues, funk, hard rock, country, latino, soul, R&B, and his buddy-buddy days with Trkaj and Murat & Jose are well known too. It all proves that Benč has always been hugely receptive and open to the magic called music, in all its forms. All that’s missing is a metal record.
After »Najlepši neuspehi« (1992) and »Bendologija« (1999), this is actually the third compilation from the famous singer and musician, whose one-of-a-kind, instantly recognizable, incredibly distinctive, pleasant and totally velvety voice has lodged itself in our hearts for good and made him the voice of a generation of Slovenes. »Biografija« gathers a selection from Benč’s studio albums, even though some of the tracks on the compilation were written and first released in their original versions back in the seventies (e.g. Gvendolina, kdo je bil? and Maja z biseri), but Benč later adapted, rearranged, re-recorded and re-released them on his solo records. So »Biografija« ends up with about half of the album »Ob šanku« (1983), while from his stint with Junaki nočne kronike, the biting, parodic Poet sneaked onto the compilation. The tracks V veri da boš srečna, Nosila je rdečo rožo, Kadar ognji dogorijo and Zakaj star song se še vrti were already on »Najlepši neuspehi«, so »Biografija« is very, very similar to that earlier compilation.
Benč really deserves a proper retrospective release on several CDs, with extra unreleased tracks, a rich accompanying essay and galleries of rare or previously unreleased material. That’s the least the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia could scrape together. That’s how it’s done abroad. But here, money for such things is hard to find, or, to put it bluntly, so is consensus. Well, »Biografija« will do as a stopgap for now, especially since it’s packed with the real knockout hits of Benč’s career, which practically everyone knows. The release matters in several ways. For one, you can’t get his albums, or the albums of the bands and artists he’s worked with, anywhere in physical form. It’s also a great gift for our moms and dads, who are really Benč’s generation. If you need his live release, look up Live in Mons from 2013.
As the tracks from this compilation queue up in the player, I get swept away nostalgically to the eighties and to the thought of what a lovely youth we had, much lovelier than today’s kids have, who will never experience it, let alone understand it: Benč’s visit to Dario Diviacchio on a Thursday evening on TV Koper, on the show Videomix in 1983, when our living legend of pop and rock presented Navali narod na gostilne on that very show. Unforgettable.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
- Ta noč je moja
- Bendologija
- Sol, poper in sanje
- Joža iz Portoroža
- Delo mi ne leži
- Abraham
- Poet
- V veri da boš srečna
- Nosila je rdečo rožo
- Maja z biseri
- Oče in sin
- Canzone Italiana
- Kadar ognji dogorijo
- Gvendolina, kdo je bil?
- Ob šanku
- Navali narod na gostilne
- Zakaj star song se še vrti
