Panda

Panda is a Slovenian pop rock band founded in 1986 by the keyboard player and singer Andrej Pompe. Their songs are mostly about love and only rarely about society, and the sound mixes rock, pop and jazz with a touch of hip-hop. Almost four decades on, the band is still active.

Panda started strongly: at the Pop delavnica festival of 1986 the song "Lino" took first place. The first singer was Suzana Jeklic, and the first album, Ugrizni me, če upaš, came out in 1987. In 1989 the brothers Samo Pirc (guitar) and Vlado Pirc (bass) joined, and they are still in the band, as is the drummer Damjan Mulej, who came in 1994. V vročici noči followed in 1990, and "Nepremagljivi" went to number one in Slovenia in 1991.

Through the 1990s the band was a regular at the big festivals. With Suzana Werbole as singer, Panda finished fourth at EMA 1996 with "Sama proti vsem", won the jury's first prize at Melodije morja in sonca in 1995 with "Za vedno moj", and won the festival itself in 1999, when "Sive ceste" took the first audience prize. The albums of those years were V poznih nočnih urah (1995), Ecstasy (1998), Nepremagljivi (2000) and Urbanavantura (2001).

Later singers were Katja Obleščak (2003–2010), Saša Danilov, Sara Petrovčič and, since 2014, Nina Bauman. Panda returned to EMA with "Tok, tok" in 2001, with "Tvoj svet", sung with the rapper Trkaj, in 2004, and with "Nemirna leta" in 2007, and sang "Danes se vse preprosto zdi" at Slovenska popevka 2000. In 2011 "Nepremagljivi" was recorded again as a duet with Nuša Derenda, and in 2012 other musicians paid tribute to the band on the album Šepetanja – Tribute to Panda.

The newer albums are D.O.N.S (2005), Depandansa (2009), Stoletni ples (2016), Daleč stran (2019) and Legenda (2023), on which Tinkara Kovač is a guest. Panda's best-known songs include "Sive ceste", "Nepremagljivi", "Tvoj svet", "Ti in jaz", "Tok tok", "Daleč stran" and "Stoletni ples".