Ekatarina Velika

One of my favourite bands ever. Also probably the most consistently great rock band ever. I love pretty much all of their 7 albums (it's 7 if I include Katarina II - an album they made before a change in line-up and a change to their name to Ekatarina Velika). Their weakest is probably the self-titled effort from 1985, due to being somewhat underproduced (most of the songs sound better live), but even that one has some great songs on it.

Everything else is pretty stellar. It's hard to explain really. They weren't groundbreaking or whatever and the only thing that would differentiate them from other similar rock bands is the inclusion of synths and piano. Which gives a lot of their songs some sort of 80s new wave music atmosphere (while the songs themselves are still rock songs). But they could sure write the tunes. And Milan Mladenović, the frontman, could write some amazing lyrics.

One thing I love about their music is how it captures the "zeitgeist" so to speak.. By that I don't just mean that it's musically typical for their age, but that their music reflects the general situation of life back then. On Ljubav and Samo Par Godina za Nas (1987 & 1989) the signs of Yugoslavia falling apart were already being reflected in some of the songs (Tonemo, Amerika, Par Godina za Nas, ...), while the beginning of wars in 1991 resulted in their darkest album (both musically and lyrically), Dum Dum. Their swan song, Neko Nas Posmatra might appear more "positive" in nature, with more upbeat music, but it is in fact just as affected by the war as its predecessor
I rarely see this album being mentioned when there's talk about "yugo"-music or EKV in particular, but to me this is the one that is the most personal, honest and emotional.
There are however a couple of weaker tracks there, so I don't consider it their best. That honour would go to Samo Par Godina za Nas.

Unfortunately, their story was cut short with the death of Milan Mladenović in 1994 and the following deaths of Bojan Pečar (bass) in 1998 and Margita Stefanović (keyboards) in 2002 meant that the three musicians that represented the core of Ekatarina Velika all suffered the same fate.