THE POLITICAL infighting within the coalition that ousted Milosevic in October 2000 has paralyzed even the most basic political functions in Serbia. The country still lacks a new constitution, for instance. And Serbia’s recent presidential elections descended into farce — turnout was too low to produce a winner.

Thus, legal reforms to fight bootlegging and protect copyrights are also stalled — and not very high on anyone’s list of priorities. Even Serbia’s broadcast-media landscape remains largely unchanged two years later. TV Pink offers a good example of how the influence of Milosevic-era kitsch lingers. It still pumps out vapid, showy, tasteless pop music, mingled with episodes of The Simpsons. Given Pink’s horrible history of ties to the Milosevic regime and the tenuous legal basis for its continued existence, one might expect the plug to have been pulled by now. Yet it has managed to stay in business by cozying up to Serbia’s new reformist rulers — so much so that Glas Javnosti writer Predrag Dragosavac sneeringly refers to it as "the most reformed media outlet in Serbia."

This "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" scenario has only hardened the cynicism of local musicians, many of whom steer clear of TV Pink on principle. "If we were on TV Pink, we’d sell much more," says Feda Dimovic of Belgrade Syndicate. "But we don’t want to be there."

Yet many in Belgrade’s scene see Pink’s influence as only one reason for the increasing marginalization of Serbia’s underground music. They also feel betrayed by a change of direction in Radio B92 — which was a stalwart of rebellion and rock music during the Milosevic years. Serbia’s government shut down the station four times during that period, yet it kept bouncing back to irritate and provoke the regime. It emerged from the October 2000 revolution with the best news service in the Balkans, and thus occupied unchallenged moral high ground. (It’s a fascinating story told with panache by British writer Matthew Collin in his book Guerrilla Radio [Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002].)

How B92 has used this high ground in its music programming has caused some consternation, however. In contrast with its more raucous past, when it played groups such as Sonic Youth and Public Enemy, B92’s playlist these days is much more mainstream — relying heavily on US and British alternative rock and dance music. (In fact, this week’s Top 20 includes no Serbian bands, but lists Supergrass, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nightmares on Wax.)

The records B92 releases on its own label have also drifted to the mainstream, including records by jangly, bright, and heavily Brit-pop-influenced bands such as Eva Braun and Veliki Prezir. It’s true that B92 has released a new album by Darkwood Dub, but in it the band has sanded down the rough, twitchy edges of its past and produced a smoother amalgam of disco and dub.

"With no active political role to play, they started thinking in market terms," says Velickovic of B92, "which is sometimes a wrong attitude in Serbia, where the market is shapeless and you have the power to shape it." He adds that "there’s a tendency to refer to B92 as ‘the little Pink.’ "

The changes at B92 were introduced in a complicated context not entirely of the station’s making. Despite Serbia’s fragile economy, donor nations that supported B92 in the past — including the United States — have cut back drastically on funding. While doing so, they have pressured stations, such as B92, to cut staff and employ more rigid music formats. In a mad rush to impose US corporate media models on fledgling Balkan outlets even as they reduce support, donors are killing off the media freedom that is the ostensible goal of such aid.

Music editor Tomislav Grujic has been with B92 since its inception in the early 1990s. He confirms that the station "can’t rely on donors" and that B92 is coping with strong pressure "to become self-sufficient." Grujic is therefore unapologetic about changes in the station’s musical program — particularly in the daytime hours. "We can’t go back to when we played Public Enemy and Sonic Youth all day," Grujic says. "We have a bigger audience now and our target audience has shifted to a slightly older audience. They’re not prepared for hard music. The daytime program is slightly mellower now. I’d call it ‘dignified mainstream.’ "

As far as Serbian music goes, Grujic argues that he couldn’t meet a "quota" system of the sort adopted in France and Canada, which require a set amount of programming created in their countries — often with government support — to be played on their broadcast media. "We don’t have a big choice yet," he says. "If I had to do it, I’d have to play old Yugoslav music — the kind of music we tried to escape from."

Dragosavac and others take issue with this assessment. "They are very rigid about the stuff that they are not publishing themselves," says Dragosavac. "It is impossible to hear [those bands] on B92, and not only that — with their attitude, they are constantly minimizing the image of domestic music, like everything was, or is, just crap."

DESPITE THE cynicism and obstacles, Serbian rockers have soldiered on. But the material rewards are scant. For instance, Presing regrouped and recorded a brilliant new album, 600 nebo ("Sixth Heaven"). It’s had glowing reviews, but its sales have been less than stellar — hovering in the low three digits. "Our local success has not translated into sales," says Markovic. "We are getting incredible feedback from the press. We have been number one on various radio lists, and our video has been played. But sales are nothing, distribution is nothing, and concerts aren’t happening."

The rappers of Belgrade Syndicate offer another such example. The band’s latest single — "Govedina" ("Beef") — has done more than get rave reviews. It’s caused a national sensation by skewering politicians with rhymes just before the recent presidential elections in Serbia. In many ways, "Govedina" perfectly captures the angst and anger in Serbia’s music scene today. (It even nods to piracy by nicking the driving riff from Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre’s 1995 hit "California Love.") The song is in essence a celebration of political freedoms (especially freedom of speech), and it pokes savage fun at politicians in the voice of a common man. Yet much of the song’s vitriol is aimed at what its speaker sees as "Western" influences — including globalization, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and gay rights. Its ambivalence is stark, and mirrors the general feeling in Serbia: desire for reform mingled with fear of what it will bring.

Everyone in Serbia is talking about "Govedina." But for all that, Syndicate member Bosko Ciricovic says his band’s sales are similar to those of Presing. Belgrade Syndicate, he says, "gets no money from our records."

The ruckus kicked up by Belgrade Syndicate is one sign that Serbia’s "underground" music still has the capacity to intrude rudely on its mainstream. There are other signs of life as well, including Pedja Nedic’s OK magazine. Nedic started the magazine — which focuses both on local and foreign rock — in May 2000, with a printing of 2000 copies. Now, the magazine’s circulation has grown to over 5000. "The market needed such a magazine," says Nedic, who does his best to shine a spotlight on Serbian rock bands (Darkwood Dub and the hard reggae sound of Eyesburn have made the cover), but who also spurs newsstand sales with cover stories on David Bowie and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Nedic echoes Grujic’s concern about the size and quality of the Serbian rock scene. "We would be happy if we could have a local band on each cover," says Nedic. "But the problem is that there are not enough local bands making music that we support." The Chili Peppers made the cover, he says, "because they are the best-selling bootleg in Belgrade."

Whether Serbia’s underground will survive until bootleg culture is eradicated and new legal regulations are passed is an open question. The music flooding the Serbian market from both the West and other parts of the former Yugoslavia is greeted by local musician as both tantalizing and tragic. Serbian musicians talk wistfully about the large "Yugo-rock" markets of the 1970s and 1980s, but they take only small steps to reopen them amidst the still-raw wounds of conflict. To entertain any hope of greater success, however, such markets are needed. Yet Markovic says that touring in support of Presing’s album in Serbia and Montenegro alone won’t even pay for itself. "When you put it on paper, nothing works out," he says. "Gasoline costs more than you get from the gig, because the ticket price in most cities is so low that you can do nothing with it, and you can’t increase it ’cause their local economy is in a horrible state — they can’t afford it."

Some observers chalk up the proliferation of DJ and rave culture to just such economies of scale. "It was — and is — much easier to bring one DJ [to Belgrade to play shows] instead of the whole band, and to pay for just one place ticket," says Dragosavac. "DJs have become Belgrade’s ‘virtual’ reality."

Then there’s the bias against Serbia in neighboring countries — rooted in its influential musical role in the 1990s — which remains strong. Markovic observes that "they don’t play Serbian music on television in Croatia and Slovenia. They make it almost impossible to go there and play concerts, due to visas, work permits, and other bureaucracy issues. They have found ways to make it impossible to sell Serbian records in their shops."

Such imposed isolation — combined with a poor economy, piracy, and the battle for airplay — has ensured that even the best Serbian underground music will remained trapped in Serbia for some time to come.

At heart, however, the bleak state of Serbia’s underground music is rooted in more than money — or lack of it. People make music to express feelings and share a particular world-view. At the moment, many of Serbia’s musicians feel cut off from that vital function of music — making their case to a larger audience than their fellow Serbs.

"It’s a shame that we cannot communicate with young people [elsewhere]," says Markovic. "Our basic message, which they would easily recognize, is very simple: ‘Look, there are normal men in Belgrade, who never hated you and never supported the war.’ "

Richard Byrne is a journalism fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He can be reached at richardbyrne1@earthlink.net