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55 albums · 1957–2022

Music of Bulgaria, from the voices of the choirs and Ivo Papasov to estrada, rock, chalga and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir in folk costume on stage, seen from the first row
Lili Ivanova with her arms raised to a full hall, seen from behind on stageTheodosii Spassov playing the kaval at a microphone
The Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, at a concert in 2013. Photo: Daznaempoveche, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Lili Ivanova at her concert in London in 2015. Photo: Petya Ivanova, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Theodosii Spassov with the kaval in New York in 2022. Photo: Veni Markovski, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Bulgaria's popular music has the women's choirs at its heart, the Philip Koutev ensemble and the State Television choir the world knows as Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Valya Balkanska's Rhodope song, Ivo Papasov's wedding clarinet and Theodosii Spassov's kaval, then the estrada of Lili Ivanova and Emil Dimitrov, the rock of FSB, Shturcite and Tangra, Nova Generatsia, Hipodil and B.T.R. around the turn of the nineties, the chalga of Azis and Preslava, the hip hop of Upsurt and 100 Kila, Ostava and P.I.F. from the clubs of Sofia, Oratnitza taking the folk into electronics, Grafa and Poli Genova today, Milcho Leviev's jazz, and Boris Christoff and Raina Kabaivanska on the opera stages. The list has 55 records from 1957 to 2022, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Diana Express, Review and Epizod are missing because their records are not on Deezer, and the Orthodox chant, most of the classical tradition, the regions' own folk beyond the choirs and the Thracian and Rhodope song beyond a few records would each need a list of their own. About 41 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Rock 16%Folk & Country 11%Pop 10%Other 63%
  • Rock 16%
  • Folk & Country 11%
  • Pop 10%
  • Other 63%

The genres named most: bulgarian, rock, pop, folk, estrada, pop-folk.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Bulgaria 55. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.