Greeted at the door by bouncers, handed a Granny Smith apple on arriving at the bottom of the staircase and a martini on walking into the club, entering into the underground Liqueur in Sofia was like entering into a den of those who knew what everything was about. And when each little couple or trio has the same attitude, it can be kind of funny.
Luckily, Lubo, who started on a solo singing career in 2007 after breaking from the rock-pop group Te, has been able to remain sufficiently down to earth and was able to present his new single Na Kraya na Sveta (To the End of the Earth/На края на света) with all due personable humbleness and excitement to the media on September 29.
First, note that not all modern Bulgarian music is chalga. And second, note that Lubo is a good singer, a very good singer, and the music video that accompanied his song only served to highlight his dedication to quality as opposed to shock value.
Imagine a long, wide, empty street of New York City. Impossible, you say. Not even something that Hollywood can oft do, video director Kamen Vodenicharov said. Yet they as Bulgarians, Lubo said, were able to pull it off: find a not-too-frequented street, go there at 5.30-6am, and ask the pedestrians and drivers to hold off for a minute.
Accomplished.
Throughout the clip, Lubo walks the streets of New York, passing by billboards of beautiful faces, adverts for any product desired and signs with his name on them. He walks, searching for love. A possible one – dark haired, in a flowing white dress – appears on screen in a few, separated shots. And still, Lubo walks, T-shirt emblazoned with the face of Blondie by Marc Jacobs.
We don't know how the search ends; what matters more is that the music (by Krasimir Todorov of D2) is good, and that, though the song is played at least seven times over the course of the next three hours, no one gets sick of it.
We talked to Lubo, after getting a snapshot of him with the evergreen Vassil Naidenov, there among the faces and chortles of Kamelia Todorova, Ya-Ya, Spens and others. Lubo does not take himself as “pop shit”, as another Bulgarian singer once described himself to the author of this article. He is real.
He had always wanted to go to New York City, and did, thanks to the filming of this four-minute music video.
“It's not about having pretty women,” he said, “it's about good music and good video – that's what my aesthetic is about.”
Lubo has been nominated for best musical artist in the MM Awards of the Decade, to be held on October 9 at NDK (National Palace of Culture) in Sofia. When mentioned, the fact appeared to have slipped his mind. He switched the weight from one brown suede Adidas-clad foot to the other, and said that he was humbled, that the nomination in itself meant heaps to him: “It means I'm more than just a personality.”
And as he shared about his recent trip to Jerusalem, one undertaken on more of a spiritual plane than a touristic, and one that “somehow prepared [him] for a difficult situation” – the soon following death of his father – Lubo remained calm and strong, bidding goodbye to the numerous friends turning in for the night, and before long thanked us for the interview and took leave himself, with a handshake and word of meeting again.
In New York.
