New Primitives - The Name

The Name

The movement's name arguably came as a reaction to two then-actual movements: New Romantic in global pop music and Neue Slowenische Kunst in Slovenia. On one hand, the term New Primitivism was a clear anti-reference to New Romantic, as they sought to be anything but romantic and sugarsweet. On the other hand, they wanted to emphasize the stereotypes encountered in many jokes about Bosnians and Slovenians – the former portrayed as raw, unsophisticated, vivid, and open-hearted, and the latter likely to be stiff, cold, serious and calculated.

New Primitives are also mentioned in "Anarhija All Over Baščaršija" (Anarchy All Over Baščaršija), a landmark song by Zabranjeno pušenje. In the song, new primitives are violent locals who listen to Yugoslav folk music, "attack hippies" and are repulsed by everything that comes from the west.