Music of Serbia

Traditional folk instruments include the gajde, kaval, dajre, diple, tamburitza, gusle, tapan (davul), šargija, ćemane (kemenche), zurla (zurna), and frula among others.

In the highlands of Serbia and Montenegro these long poems are typically accompanied on a one-string fiddle called the gusle, and concern themselves with themes from history and mythology.

The Serbs however were stubbornly tenacious enough to maintain an oral history through folk poems and songs recited with the accompaniment of the Gusle.

These brave defenders of Serbian art and culture in these arduous and treacherous times were the peasants who played the Gusle, a one-stringed instrument in the shape of a lute.

The German poet Goethe so admired Serbian poetry and folklore that he learned to speak Slavonic-Serbian, the common language then spoken by Slavs in the Balkans and northern regions of the Austrian Empire.

When the Jews fled Spain the Serbs provided a hospitable environment in which they could resettle and prosper, particularly in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

During the 19th and 20th centuries numerous bands, both military and civilian, contributed to the development of music culture in Belgrade and other Serbian cities and towns.

Ljubica Marić, Stanojlo Rajičić, Milan Ristić took influence from Schoenberg, Hindemith and Haba, rejecting the "conservative" work of prior Serbian composers, seeing it as outdated and the wish for national expression was outside their interest.

Several notable composers used motifs from Serbian folk music and composed works inspired by Serbian history or culture, such as: Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, Arthur Rubinstein, Antonín Dvořák, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Schubert, Hans Huber and others.

[11] Thanks to Miloš Obrenović's good contacts during his stay in Vienna, Johann Strauss II composed the Serben-Quadrille intended for Serbian balls.

The Serbian folk music is both rural (izvorna muzika) and urban (starogradska muzika) and includes a two-beat dance called kolo, which is a circle dance with almost no movement above the waist, accompanied by instrumental music made most often with an accordion, but also with other instruments: frula (traditional kind of a recorder), tamburica, or accordion.

Pop music grew in popularity during the following decades, especially during the late 1950s and 1960s with performers of schlager, such as Lola Novaković and Đorđe Marjanović.

Some of the best known songs from this era include "Zvižduk u osam" by Marjanović and "Devojko mala", which was performed by actor Vlastimir Đuza Stojiljković in the popular movie Ljubav i moda (1960).

Despite the fact that pop partially lost its popularity in Serbia to rock music during the 1970s and 1980s, it continued to stay relevant with disco-influenced artists such as Zdravko Čolić, who is recognized as one of the most prominent performers from the entire Yugoslavia.

Some of the best-known Serbian pop singers who have gained prominence in the 2000s are Vlado Georgiev, Marija Šerifović, Željko Joksimović, Aleksandra Radović, Tijana Dapčević, Jelena Tomašević, Nataša Bekvalac, Emina Jahović, Ana Nikolić and Saša Kovačević.

Most prominent pop artists from the 2010s include: Sara Jo, Nikolija, Edita Aradinović, Teodora Džehverović, Anastasija Ražnatović, Elena Kitić, Angellina, Breskvica and Hurricane (Serbian band).

The most notable Serbian rock acts are Bajaga i Instruktori, Đorđe Balašević, Disciplina Kičme, Ekatarina Velika, Električni Orgazam, Galija, Idoli, Kerber, Korni Grupa, Laboratorija Zvuka, Partibrejkers, Pekinška Patka, Piloti, Pop Mašina, Rambo Amadeus, Riblja Čorba, Smak, Šarlo Akrobata, YU Grupa, Van Gogh, and others.

In the following decade, pop-folk only grew in popularity as a result of the regime of Slobodan Milošević, Yugoslav wars, inflation and political isolation.

Because of it, pop-folk gained a bad reputation, becoming colloquially known as "turbo-folk", a term that was coined by musician Rambo Amadeus because of the influence electronic dance music had on this crossover genre during the 1990s.

In the 2000s Serbian record label Grand Production gathered most of the country's pop-folk performers, such as Indira Radić, Saša Matić, Seka Aleksić, Đani and Dara Bubamara.

Artists such as Elitni Odredi, Rasta and Coby reached mainstream success by switching to more commercial sound and appealing to the wider audience.

In a review of Konstrakta's song "In corpore sano", Petar Popović considered her a performer that "is rising above the existing genres and offering a different universe".

Luke Black represented Serbia with the song "Samo mi se spava" in 2023, after that he became one of the most productive artists among other Eurovision contestants this year releasing an album "Chainsaws in Paradise" in 2024.