Culture
Siddharta
A Musical Phenomenon or a Passing Trend?
08.01.2010
The biggest Slovenian rock Band Siddharta tries to reinvent their musical identity six years after the undisputable peak. Their fifth studio album Saga brings some freshness to their expression, but obviously not enough to buy them back the screaming masses.Siddharta is a Slovene band which started out in 1995, when they were rehearsing in their high school in Šentvid. At first they played smaller club venues, but when they released their first album “Id” in 1999, they were already stars. By the time their sophomore effort “Nord” was released, they were already huge and probably already the most popular rock band in Slovenia, with a number of hits playing on both television and radio stations. Over the next few years they became the biggest name on the Slovene musical scene, even performing in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 30,000 people at the Ljubljana stadium, which was unprecedented for a Slovene act.
Siddharta is probably still Slovenia’s biggest rock band, despite suffering a great decrease in popularity in the last years. What made them so huge, so that they could even fill the stadium in Bežigrad? Was it luck, being at the right place at the right time, good connections, musical skill, good music, a combination of this or something completely different?
We will probably never really know the answer to this, but Siddharta went from playing in high schools to playing large venues with light speed and everybody in Slovenia knew who they were, even if not everybody liked them. From 1999, when they released their debut entitled ID, Siddharta have been at the top of the Slovene music industry. Every single they released sold massively (only in Slovenia of course), every video they made was featured on just about every show with music videos in Slovenia and every album they released sold large quantities when it comes to the Slovene market. Everybody wanted a piece of them.
The biggest with a reason
They did have that big epic sound, especially when it came to the choruses, which were extremely bombastic. But this was true of almost every song and soon they started repeating themselves. But this didn’t seem to bother anyone. They were hot merchandise, even working together with one of the biggest names in Slovene music Vlado Kreslin. They were young and vibrant and made teenage girls (and some boys) weak at the knees. The singer Tomi only had to look in their direction and there was a screaming frenzy. It was Beatlemania all over again!
Critics couldn’t decide whether to be enthusiastic about them or to dismiss them offhand. Another element that seems to confuse the critics is the lyrics. Some say they are complete nonsense, while others think there might be more to them than meets the eye. So, is this a case of putting random big words together to make an impact or are their lyrics so profound that most people cannot make heads or tales out of them? This is one aspect of Siddharta we will most likely never get to the bottom of. The truth is, if you try hard enough, you can make sense of even the most ridiculous gobbledygook, however I am not implying that this is the case with Siddharta. I am merely stating that any work of art can be deciphered if you believe it has a deeper meaning.
So, they were the sweethearts of the Slovene public and they were also rockers, which some people saw as the ultimate statement of not selling out to the needs of big corporations. They had artistic credibility, especially with their “profound” lyrics, which were sometimes so profound that almost nobody could make sense out of them.
Siddharta were a huge success story with every album they released. The 4 studio albums and the many singles they released kept the countless fans happy, even if many of the songs worked on the same principle and were more or less in the same style. But that was alright as long as they were selling albums and kept their artistic credibility along the way.
Saga continues
In 2009, Siddharta released their fifth studio album called Saga. This new effort seems to divide the listeners. Some like the direction Siddharta are taking, while others seem to think that the men have lost the plot. There is no doubt that they are trying some new things, which naturally upset some of their fans who are set in their ways, but some other music lovers enjoyed Saga exactly because it is slightly different. And that’s exactly what it is – only slightly different. This is still the Siddharta we know, with the big choruses and the slightly dark themes, but the style is a bit more varied. But how can you tell if this is an identity crisis or if this band really is making an effort to break out of its mould and go somewhere they have not yet been? One thing seems clear though. Siddharta will most likely never be as successful as they once were.
So what caused this drop in their success? Was it the album, which was too experimental for the fans who had grown accustomed to a certain style, or was it something else? I think Siddharta simply oversaturated the Slovene public with their music, which was nice but nowhere nearly diverse enough to satisfy even the most lacklustre fan if he or she had been exposed to their music for prolonged periods of time. The nail in their coffin must have been surely their “Maraton” performance, where they performed their entire discography in one evening. This probably overloaded the musical circuits of many fans and sent them running for the door and showed Siddharta’s complete self-indulgence. The Slovene fans simply had enough.
So, Siddharta certainly was the biggest Slovene band (not just rock) for many years, but now their popularity has dipped. Gone are the days when they could fill the stadium in Ljubljana with 30,000 fans and I think it will even be difficult for them to fill a large venue like Hala Tivoli. Their example merely shows that fame is fleeting for most artists. I hope they continue on though. They are still capable of producing good music and putting on good shows. Perhaps if they don’t concern themselves with the days and fame gone by too much, we will see an even more adventurous side to their music in the future. As for them being a truly unique musical phenomenon, I think that is certainly not the case, which is proven by the lack of interest in their music abroad, despite recording an English version of their album RH-. Audiences abroad merely saw them as one more rock band with nothing new to offer, only Slovene audiences considered them fresh and interesting and even that has now worn off. Siddharta will have to go their own way to remain interesting to the audiences, or they will become just one more rock band in Slovenia as well.