Jugoton

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For the succesor company, see Croatia Records.

Jugoton was the largest record label in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia based in Zagreb, Croatia.

1 History
2 Competition
3 Yugonostalgia
4 Trivia
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

Jugoton was formed in 1947. Its notable for releasing some of the most important former Yugoslav records incl. the most important albums of Bijelo Dugme, Azra, Električni Orgazam, Idoli and Haustor as well as the influential compilation album Paket Aranžman. Jugoton signed most of the eminent ex-Yugoslav artists and also released some of the most important international pop and rock stars for the domestic market incl. the albums by The Beatles for instance. The company also owned a widespread network of record shops across the federation.

Many artists from Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest were signed for Jugoton including the Eurovision Song Contest 1989 winners Riva.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 the name of the company was changed to Croatia Records.

[edit] Competition

Other major labels in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were: PGP-RTB (renamed to PGP-RTS) from Belgrade ; Suzy from Zagreb; Diskoton from Sarajevo; RTVLJ from Ljubljana and others.

[edit] Yugonostalgia

The former Jugoton's record shop located in the main Shopping Mall in Skopje (Gradski Trgovski Centar), Republic of Macedonia still operates under the same name managed by the Macedonian record label Lithium Records^[1]

[edit] Trivia

Jugoton was especially popular among the youths from the former Eastern Bloc who couldnt travel to western countries and rarelly had an access to western music. One of the solutions in obtaining western music was to go shopping to Socialist Yugoslavia which was not an Eastern Bloc country, but a member of the Non-Aligned Movement largely opened to western influences. Thus the Yugoslav records gained a cult status in Eastern Europe and became a sort of symbol of the western popular culture. As a tribute to Jugoton, an album called Yugoton^[2] was released in Poland in 2001 by ZIC-ZAC Music Company and BMG Poland. It contains cover versions of popular ex-Yugoslav acts such as Električni Orgazam, Idoli, Bajaga i Instruktori, Haustor, Prljavo Kazalište and Parni Valjak. The songs are performed in polish language by the Polish artists: Katarzyna Nosowska, Paweł Kukiz, Olaf Deriglasoff, Ryszard „Tymon” Tymański and others. The front cover of the CD features the polish artists together with their guests Vlada Divljan of Idoli and Darko Rundek of Haustor.

Another reference to Yugoslav records and Jugoton can be found in the film Sonnenallee (which takes place in the former East Germany), in the scene with the record smuggler.