Serbian singer Ceca's (pronounced Tsetsa) life sounds like a fairy tale. A demented, warlord filled fairy tell — but a fairy tale nonetheless. She began singing at nine, and was discovered at 14. She is credited with basically popularising a whole genre of music, known as Turbofolk, which is a purely Yugoslavian mixture of traditional folk music with techno.

She became the greatest selling singer in the former Yugoslavia, and is basically regarded as the Madonna of Southern Europe. But then the story gets weird for Ceca. She became a Serbian nationalist and married Serbian paramilitant Arkan, who was wanted for crimes against humanity at the ICJ. Then he was assassinated, dying in her arms.

To this day, she refuses to ever play a show in the Bosnian capital city Sarajevo, or the Croatian capital Zagreb. She has been arrested for weapons charges, and is currently being investigated for money laundering. Oh, and people in Belgrade claim that there isn't a single part of her body that hasn't been "enhanced" by the city's plastic surgeons.

With that kind of background, it is surprising she has any time at all to make music. But fun, pop music she does make, especially on her latest album, Idealno Loša (Ideally Bad). I don't speak a word of Serbain, so the lyrics remain a mystery, but the album is full of so-bad-they're-good pop songs, especially the album's first and second tracks, "Lepi grome moj" and "Idealno Loša."

The album is also filled out by some slower ballads, but all of the songs have a definite Balkan flavour with traditional arrangements and instrumentation.

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