Hipodil

Hipodil (bg: Хиподил) is a Bulgarian rock band, founded 1988 in Sofia by four classmates from the Mathematics High School in Sofia. The main music style played by the band is punk, but there are many ska, hard rock and heavy metal elements in their music, too. And also, but really rare, folk motives. All this complemented with some jazz touches, mainly in the first two albums. The band's lyrics are aggressive, a little bit vulgar and sarcastic, but always with a good sense of humor. Because of that Hipodil are known as a "scandalous and rebellious" band. Their main goal is to entertain the listener and of course themselves; most of the lyrics concern topics such as alcohol, sex, women; they frequently ridicule famous Bulgarian and non-Bulgarian people (and songs sometimes). Nevertheless, the band has some pretty serious tracks with complex and meaningful, deeply socially-oriented lyrics. All the lyrics are in Bulgarian and are written by vocalist Svetoslav Vitkov (Svetlyo). Most of the music is composed by guitarist Petar Todorov (Pesho). In a great number of songs guest-musicians take part adding mainly brass-section.

Contents

1 History
2 Curious facts
3 Discography
4 Listen to Hipodil
5 External links

History

The four classmates from the Sofia's Mathematics High School Nikola Kavaldjiev, Miroslav Tellalov, Nikolay Savov and Petar Todorov formed in 1988 a punk band which played from the very beginning only self-written songs sung in Bulgarian. The first public performance of the band was in the Sofia's Summer Theatre with the song "Zidaromazachi" (Wallplasterers), a parody of the ruling communist regime at that time. Of course that got them into trouble with the government.

After a couple of line-up changes, Hipodil - already with the new vocalist Svetoslav Vitkov - recorded in 1992 the songs "Bira s vodka"(Beer with Vodka), "Bira" (Beer), "Chift ochi" (A Couple of Eyes), "Himna"(The Anthem), "Jenata"(The Woman) and "Klitoren orgasm"(Clitoral Orgasm). Next year the band released their first studio album called "Alkoholen delirium"(Alcoholic Delirium). The guys immediately made a national tour through Bulgaria, all the costs were taken by the band. The tour was quite successful, but in a concert in the town of Varna, after massive disorders and quarrel with the audience by the local police, all group members and some of the audience were arrested. So, at the very beginning of the band's career, Hipodil received their "scandal aureole".

In the new album, recorded and released in 1994, there is a song about that incident in Varna - "Hipodili". This song became some kind of an anthem of Hipodil. The sound in the album is harder than the previous one, and the lyrics are darker and rebellious, which all was an idea of vocalist Vitkov, influenced by metal music and the band Slayer - one of his favourite bands ever.

In the third album, released 1996, there are many experiments with other styles, most often to find are ska motives. There are some very serious and complex lyrics in the record, mainly by the tracks "Drashtya s nokti" (I scratch with nails), "Kato Slantze" (Like a Sun) and in some measure "Sprete ni toka" (Shut Down the Current), which is not so typical for the band, but a practice in almost every album. The rest is the well-know funny-vulgar-party stuff and a mockery with the silly pop-folk's lyrics - a famous music genre in Bulgaria. The final track "Nova gratska pesen" (New Town Song) is an interesting mix between tango rhythm and heavy guitars.

The fourth album of Hipodil is probably the most scandalous one in the history of Bulgarian show-business. The Bulgarian Ministry of Culture disallowed any release of the album in CD format and got the band under trial for pornography, because of the explicit lyrics. Despite that the pilot song "Bate Goyko" became the greatest commercial success of the band ever. This is even the first song of Hipodil entering the radio charts and receiving a video clip. The first ever instrumental track of Hipodil is also in this record, just like one of the best ballads of the band - "Otnesen!" (Scatter-brained) and a dose of the traditional mockeries with famous people.

In the end of 1999 the vocalist Svetoslav Vitkov went in the USA to work as a guest worker, but despite that the other members decided to start recording new material, inviting several singers from other Bulgarian bands, replacing Vitkov on the vocals. The new album, called "Hora ot naroda" (People of the Folk), came into the Bulgarian music market in year 2000. The music style is similar to the other previous works of Hipodil, but a little bit more soft-sounding and mainly ska-influenced. Not so typical for the band is also the often usage of keyboards. The main vocalist Vitkov appears as a lead singer only in two of the songs - "Partizani" (Partisans) and "Drugo nyama" (There's Nothing Else), and in the track "Choveche" (Dude) - in the back vocals.

Curious facts

The band's name is actually a pun. It is a mix between hippopotamus and crocodile (in Bulgarian: HIPOpotam and KrokoDIL / ХИПОпотам - крокоДИЛ). Vocalist Vitkov explained once in a TV-show (for fun or maybe not) that the hippopotamus and the crocodile are actually two male exemplars, who got stuck together while mating.

The vocalist Svetoslav Vitkov has a released book, containing all the lyrics of Hipodil's songs (written by himself), as well as many self-written poems, thoughts and revelations.

Discography

Alkoholen delirium/Alcoholic Delirium (1993)
Nekuf ujas, nekuf at/Kind'a horror, kind'a hel (1994)
S gol v rukata.../With naked...in the hand (1996)
Nadurveni vuglishta/Aroused charcoal (On charcoal) (1998)
Hora ot naroda/People of the folk (2000)
Tu'pest/The Best (compilation)

Listen to Hipodil

[Hipodil mp3s for downloading]

External links

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