Doris Dragović

Doris Dragović is a Croatian pop singer, born Dorotea Dragović on 16 April 1961 in Split. Her parents gave her the name Doris as a child, and her maternal uncle, Edi Radosavljević, was a co-founder of the Split festival. She has named Arsen Dedić, Gabi Novak and Tereza Kesovija among her influences.

In the early 1980s she rose to fame as a member of the group More, with the albums "Hajde da se mazimo" (1983) and "Tigrica" (1985), which went gold. Going solo in the mid-1980s, she won the Yugoslav selection in 1986 with "Željo moja" and sang it at Eurovision in Bergen, Norway, finishing eleventh with 49 points. The album "Željo moja" (1986) went platinum, as did "Tužna je noć" (1987), "Pjevaj srce moje" (1988) and "Budi se dan" (1989), while "Tvoja u duši" (1987) went diamond. In 1990 she married the former water polo player Mario Budimir, and their son Borna was born that year.

In the 1990s came "Dajem ti srce" (1992), "Ispuni mi zadnju želju" (1993) and "Baklje ivanjske" (1995), whose title song is a duet with Mladen Bodalec of Prljavo Kazalište and which began her work with the songwriting couple Tonči and Vjekoslava Huljić. She won Melodije hrvatskog Jadrana in 1995 and 1996, and Zadarfest in 1997 with "Nespokoj". In 1999 she won Dora with "Marija Magdalena" and came fourth for Croatia at Eurovision in Jerusalem with 118 points, the country's best result until 2024.

"Krajem vijeka" (1999) and "Lice" (2000) followed, then "Malo mi za sriću triba" (2002), with a Dalmatian sound, which brought "Krivi ljudi", "Zemlja i stina" and the title song. She won Zadarfest again in 2002 with "Nije mi vrime" and the jury prize at the Split festival in 2003 with "Teret ljubavi". After "Ja vjerujem" (2009) she released the live albums "Koncert u Lisinskom" (2014) and "Doris live – Spaladium Arena" (2016) and a run of Croatian chart singles, among them "Brod za nabolje" (2019), "Sna' ću se ja" (2021) and "Sluge tuge" (2025), which reached No. 3. The album "Doris" came out in 2025.

Doris Dragović won the Večernjakova ruža as singer of the year in 1996 and the Zlatni studio for singer of the year in 2020. In 2019 she sold out Arena Zagreb and filled Split's Spaladium Arena, and in 2023 she played Arena Zagreb twice.