Sladjana Milošević

Slađana Milošević, born Aleksandra Milošević on 3 October 1955 in Belgrade, was a Serbian singer, songwriter, producer and author, often called the Rock Princess and regarded as an icon of the Yugoslav new wave of the 1980s. She started classical music at five on the piano and later the violin, and as a teenager played bass in bands such as Nebeska Konjica, Epitaf 8 and one of the last lineups of Džentlmeni. As a violinist she played in the Radio Television Belgrade Orchestra on about 30 albums.

She won her first festival as a singer, the Student Summer in Maglaj, in 1974, and in 1976 toured the Soviet Union with Saša Subota's Orchestra, recording "Mikado" for the label Melodiya. Her solo career began in the summer of 1977 with "Au, au", which won Hit leta and which she paid to release through PGP-RTB herself, and on 28 August 1977 she opened for Bijelo Dugme at Hajdučka česma. "Simpatija" and "Seksi dama" (1978) and her erotic image drew huge attention, and her debut album Gorim od želje da ubijem noć (1980), produced by Miki Petkovski and Laza Ristovski, brought her biggest hit, "Amsterdam". She also sang with Leb i Sol, YU Grupa and Dado Topić, and finished eighth at the 1981 Yugoslav Eurovision selection with "Recept za ljubav".

In 1983 she moved to Munich and formed Neutral Design with German musicians; their album succeeded in West Germany and Sweden and gave Yugoslavia the hit "Miki, Miki". In 1984 she won the interpretation award at Opatija with "Samsara" and sang "Princeza" with Dado Topić at the Yugoslav Eurovision selection in Skopje, finishing sixth but making it a nationwide hit. She took part in YU Rock Misija in 1985 and won MESAM in 1987 with "Bez nade". In 1988 she recorded a jazz album with the composer Darko Kraljić and won awards at a singers' festival in Beijing.

In 1989 she moved to Los Angeles, where she played with the band Baby Sister and also worked as a stockbroker. Back in Belgrade from 1995, she released the compilation Harmony (1998) and the heavy, self-produced Animal Tested (2000), whose video for "Legalize Freedom" was banned from national television; that year she took an active part in the protests against Slobodan Milošević's regime. In 2010 she won Pjesma Mediterana in Budva with "Kad' reči zastanu (Verujem u nas)", another duet with Dado Topić. She also wrote books, among them Muška žena (2012) and Tri projekta Tesla (2016). Her brother Goran Milošević was the singer of Generacija 5.

Slađana Milošević died on 26 March 2024 in a hospital in Zemun, after more than two years of illness with Sjögren's syndrome, and was buried at the Lešće cemetery in Belgrade.