You may not have heard about Dubioza Kolektiv, but you really should have. The rebellious Bosnian group have released their 7th album “Happy Machine” EP back in 2014, and one song in particular was a crowd favourite, which just got it’s music video.
The song “Free.mp3 (Pirate Bay Song)” has raised a lot of attention with it’s new video and rebellious, yet oddly humorous lyrics. As said on their website “the song is questioning copyrights in digital age, privacy on internet and freedom of information.”
If you’re from Ex-Yugo, you’ve most probably heard of the band. They’ve grown massively popular by their old songs (such as “Kažu”, “Kokuz”, “Tranzicija”, etc which are unfortunately not available in English) and by playing in front of thousands of people on festivals and concerts across Europe (they even held a few free concerts). The thing is- if you know of them- you love them. They’re constantly singing of unfairness, justice, or just being funny and creative with their lyrics, which is visible now more than ever in their song “Free.mp3”. They are without a doubt one of Bosnia’s and Ex-Yugo’s most popular and respected groups.
This time Almir, Adis, Armin, Brano, Vedran, Dragan and Senad are singing about illegal music downloading, movie watching, “copyright murder” (don’t tell Taylor Swift that), WikiLeaks, and Jamie Oliver. It features everything and everyone- from Miley Cyrus to the infamous Kim Dotcom.
The thing is that today, you basically have to pay for everything. You can’t even listen to a song without pulling out a few dollars from your pocket, and if you do, it’s “illegal”. There is a bit of controversy about the song- some agree with it, others do not. While many still buy their songs from iTunes, others prefer the old fashioned way and download it for free. This is apparently bad, but I’m not here to talk about that. There are different opinions on the topic, but which ever side you’re on you can’t deny that this is a catchy tune. And the video is even better.
The song itself was already on the Pirate Bay cover, and even Kim Dotcom tweeted about it.
What did Dubioza have to say? In a recent interview they’ve admitted: “We admire enthusiasts like WikiLeaks, The Pirate Bay, people like Edward Snowden who are fighting against the government and large corporations, but not for personal profit but because they believe in an idea, even at the expense of their own freedom. It is always inspiring to watch people who are finding ways to outsmart the system”
You can even see Obama, Kim Kardashian’s epic Paper Magazine cover, The Daily Show, and even a blast from the past with Gangnam Style. Also snippets of One Direction, Inside Out, Fast and Furious 7, the Avengers and more appear! See if you can spot them all in this truly brilliant video.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuQLMXyGQOE&w=560&h=315]
The song is, of course, available for free download at the band’s official website dubioza.org along with every other song they’ve made (one of my personal favourites is “Making Money”!). The songs are mostly sung in Bosnian, but there are a lot of rocking tunes on English and one on Spanish.