Makedonsko Devojče 2 (in Macedonian Cyrillic: Македонско девојче 2, meaning in English: Macedonian Girl 2) is the eighth studio album by Macedonian singer Karolina Gočeva released on 25 February 2014. Avalon Production launched the album in Macedonia, while Croatian label Dallas Records released it throughout former Yugoslav countries in April 2015. The album consists of eight original songs written by Valentin Soklevski and Vesna Malinova; the arrangement and production were completed by Nikola Micevski and Dejan Momirovski. Except for those eight songs, two cover versions are also included, one of them being of a Macedonian traditional song and the other one of a record originally performed by Macedonian singer Pepi Baftirovski. For Gočeva, the motivation to record the album came from the critical and commercial success of her previous project inspired by the Macedonian traditional music, Makedonsko Devojče (2008).
The project's finalization lasted for two years due to the intention of the team behind it to improve it as much as possible. According to Gočeva and the producer Micevski, the group's members' acquaintance with each other helped them in setting the right musical direction with the recording of Makedonsko Devojče 2. Musically, the album is similar to its predecessor; the songs are characterized by elements of Macedonian traditional music, but are adapted to a modern style which is contemporary at the time of the release of the album, thus intertwining pop and jazz elements. The lyrics cover emotional states of sadness, happiness, love and longing experienced by a mellow woman. The songs were written and composed specifically for Gočeva, taking into account her wide vocal range and musical versatility; all of them are sung without using any backing vocals.
Macedonian music critics commended the album with its blend of traditional and mainstream music being particularly lauded. It also achieved wide commercial success becoming the best-selling album of 2014 in Macedonia. Three singles were released from Makedonsko Devojče 2: the song "Čalgiska" premiered on 6 December 2013 before the album's release, "Dve liri (ne ni bilo pišano)" was released in January 2014 and "Koj da mi zapee" was released as a single in April 2015, being sent to radio stations in Macedonia and the other ex-Yugoslav countries. To promote Makedonsko Devojče 2, Gočeva held concerts across different cities in Macedonia before and after the release of the album. Most of them were recorded and broadcast on various TV shows in the country and were uploaded and shared on the singer's social media and YouTube accounts. In 2015, the album was also promoted in Serbia.
Background In 2008, Gočeva released the album Makedonsko Devojče in collaboration with Macedonian composer Zlatko Origjanski. The album features elements of Macedonian traditional music and it represented a change in the musical style for the singer. According to Gočeva, the album served as an experimental work for her in order to establish whether she would be able to successfully record folk music. Makedonsko Devojče turned out to be a commercial and critical success, becoming the best-selling album in Macedonia in the year of its release and receiving the award for Best World Music Album at the 2008 Sunčane Skale festival in Montenegro. Its popularity among the Macedonian public lasted for several years after its release.Carpe Diem - Interview with Karolina Gočeva. 2014. (in Macedonian). Alsat-M.
After her audience's demand to continue performing similar songs, Gočeva decided to record a second album in the same musical direction. Makedonsko Devojče 2 is a successor to the album released in 2008 and it contains songs composed in the vein of Macedonian folklore. The plans to record the album were revealed by Gočeva during an interview in May 2012 with the magazine Naš Svet, confirming that she had already begun with the song selection process for the track listing of the second edition of the project Makedonsko Devojče.Naš Svet. Каролина Гочева: "Се работи на нов поп-албум, а се бираат песни за второто издание на “Македонско девојче”. [Karolina Gočeva: "We Are Working on a New Pop-Album and We Are Also Selecting Songs for the Second Edition of "Makedonsko Devojče"] (in Macedonian). 22 May 2012. In the initial stages of the album's development, Makedonsko Devojče 2 served only as a working title and later became its official title in order to emphasize that the musical style is the same as that of Makedonsko Devojče (2008).
A team of renown Macedonian musicians was responsible for handling the instrumentation and arrangement of the songs from the album; some of the most influential ones include Olver Josifoski from the music group Ljubojna, Zoran Kostadinovski from Kabadajas, Boško Mangarovski from Chalgija Sound System and Goce Uzunski from Synthesis. The album contains eight original songs written and composed by Nikola Micevski, Valentin Soklevski and Vesna Malinova. The songwriters took into account that their songs are specifically written to be performed by Gočeva, thus trying to make them fitting for her broad vocal range and adaptable musical performance, which can range different music genres. Two cover versions are also included on the album; the first one, "Te vidov i se zaljubiv" is a Macedonian traditional song and the second one, "Ako zgrešam neka izgoram", was originally sung by Pepi Baftiroski and written by Mile and Gjorgji Barbarovski.
Recording and development
The work on the album lasted for two years, due to the group working behind it paying attention to details and trying to record the best possible version of the material at hand, at the same time maintaining slow-paced progress. The work on the album began in 2012; after the songs were written, Micevski recorded demo versions and sent them to Gočeva. After she listened to them, the singer started a song selection process, choosing the most fitting ones among the numerous that were written for her. She decided recording and including ten songs on the track listing of her new album. Makedonsko Devojče 2 was recorded at studio XL by Dejan Momirovski in Skopje. During an interview with the portal IdiVidi, Gočeva explained that the group working on the album consisted of her long-time professional acquaintances, thus rendering the process of working with them easy and pleasant due to the presence of an "excellent atmosphere". The long-time collaboration and the previous experiences they have had together served as a lesson for attaining perfection, making Gočeva more self-confident and determined in taking a specific direction with the album. During an interview on the TV show Carpe diem on the TV channel Alsat-M in February 2014, Gočeva called the album her best work she had published yet. The maturity she had gained throughout her career served as an inspiration of "modernizing the traditional"; Gočeva said that the Macedonian folklore is something existing in the blood of the Macedonian people and added that her album was not characterized by typical traditional songs but rather songs drawing inspiration from that kind of music. Through the new tracks, she allowed her musical performance to stand out and leave a certain long-lasting contribution to Macedonian contemporary music. The singer also acknowledged that the music she had recorded for the album was not popular on a worldwide scale, but emphasized that the sound is more authentic for Macedonia as compared to other mainstream popular genres across the world such as hip hop, pop and R&B.
Micevski, the album's producer, is also one of the people who had had a long-time professional relationship with the singer and who had contributed for the arrangement of the songs included on Makedonsko Devojče (2008); the start of the professional ties with Gočeva began when he joined her live band which performed during her concerts in the past. He said that due to the mutual understanding between the two of them, the process of setting a music direction with the album was without any difficulties, but moved slowly because of their intention to create high quality material. During an interview with the journal Republika, Micevski said that his work on Makedonsko Devojče 2 represented both responsibility and pressure to a certain extent. He elaborated that the requirement with the album was to create something that would resemble the first project, but will not be identical to it and would maintain the same level of quality or even surpass it. He added: "To me, that represented a big challenge and maybe a life chance to express myself differently, uniquely, with a different mark, with all my knowledge and spirit. It was an additional pleasure working with my close friend and collaborator Dejan Momirovski... In the end we all managed to do what we had had in mind." Micevski also revealed that the songs included on the album were originally custom-made for Gočeva, adapted to her vocal capabilities and musical maturity, adding that she is a "world performer" and a singer who can sing in different styles: "She can simply find her way anywhere and she does it on a very high level. The mark she left on the material of 'Makedonsko Devojče 1 and 2' is a really unique, original style of performance which leaves traces in the history of Macedonian vocal-instrumental music."
Composition and lyrics According to Gočeva, the album was meant to incorporate ethno jazz music in addition to the prominent elements of Macedonian folklore. Critics also noted elements of pop and jazz in the songs and viewed the music as an internationalization of the sound of traditional Macedonian folklore. The lyrics cover several themes with the song's motives revolving around the states of happiness, sadness, love and longing of a mature female protagonist. Instrumentally, the songs on Makedonsko Devojče 2 contain the following instruments: clarinet, bass guitar, horn, acoustic guitar, violin, qanun, saxophone and percussion.
The album opens with the seven-minute song "Koj da mi zapee" () which expresses the grief experienced by a woman who has recently lost her beloved love interest who used to sing to her while they were together. The song's title and the lyrics "Žedna sum, žedna za poj" () and "„[E]h što mi beše srceto živo, eh što si imav so nego život" () illustrate feelings of longing, and sadness for her lost love and youth. The journalist Bečković described it as a "classic in the new Macedonian čalgija“. The second song from the album is "Čalgija" which incorporates rhyme throughout its verses and features prominent elements of čalgija, a Macedonian music genre. "Vezi, vezi" (), the third song of Makedonsko Devojče 2 is an elegy for Macedonian migrant workers. "Sakam da ne te sakam" () speaks of an adulterous lover and is sung from the perspective of the female protagonist. She dedicates the song to her love interest so that he realizes she was "the one who loved him sincerely". "Smej mi se, smej“ () features and čalgija elements.