Dan Balan: Dragostea din Tei -- surprise, surprise...

Dan doesn't seem to be able to carry the song on his own...

Delia

P.S. sung by Ozone D.

(blast from the past) Ozone, in the Dan-Petru formula: Timpul trece fara noi/Time passes in spite of us

all that's left are memories that are now meaningless... sad but romantic song... D.

Akcent (O-zone's primary competitor back in the day) lost a member

MORE: Marius Nedelcu's first song without Akcent: Rain (seems familiar... some comments claim he "borrowed" a lot from an existing song); Akcent's first song without Marius Nedelcu: umbrela ta / your umbrela (child-like, when compared with prior Akcent songs)

STILL MORE: apparently, this also split-up Morandi (the replacement had been one of the two singers of that band: Marius Moga)

EVEN MORE: English version (no relationship to the Romanian version, lyrics-wise)

MORE: their first song: Ti-ai promis (I promised [to take you with me]: it's a break-up song, the guy decides to break his promise because he realizes his girlfriend was in the relationship not because she cared but because of the advantages the relationship was bringing her)

... Marius Nedelcu

(Radu Sirbu; Dan Balan) RadU is RadU no more...

MORE: his new project
...
his last song (Daun-daha; 6:00 time stamp) as "RadU"...

Delia

P.S. bad blood between Dan and Radu (Radu was hurt and considers unfounded Dan's assertion to the Romanian media-- HappyHour, same tv show (.48 time mark) -- that Ozone could not have gone much further because his fellow band members just couldn't go through the growth process necessarily to continue to be successful as a band... "something like that"...) D.

Dan Balan sings "Despre tine"

not sure what happened there but... his live singing is dissapointing...D.

Dan Balan: possible influence (lyrics)

MORE: the English translation can be a problem, especially since it was done a long time ago and some words have acquired very different primary meanings by now... it's actually hilarious, without meaning to be funny, in places...

some of the songs, such as Despre Tine Cant and Oriunde vei fi make me think he is influenced by Eminescu (the kind of romanticism and some specific themes)

Delia

P.S. Eminescu was one of the best and very much loved Romanian poets. D.

Semantic Music Annotation and Retrieval

not a bad idea, Doug... it's just that I don't think people can really put their finger on (and thus be able to articulate) what exactly it is that they like about a particular piece of music... and I doubt AI could really do that for them -- "mellow Beatles" may give an idea but I suspect quite a few songs that would fit that description (when you analyze the music) would be disappointing to quite a few of those searching using that criteria...

Delia

P.S. also, if you expect it to be a cross-cultural tool, I would think you'd run into quite a few translation/culture issues

P.P.S. I'd be really impressed if actual appeal of a song could be predicted (e.g. being able to say that "Dragostea din tei," for instance, would have huge appeal to so many people coming from so many different cultures just by analyzing the song...) D.

I suppose it makes for a more perfect rhyme

Radu seems to have maxed out this idea, by using successive repetition: Tu nu/You don't...

Delia

P.S. among the three of them, they probably tried all the permutations by now...

Could the choice of sounds be part of it?

EVEN MORE: "Ciao Bambina!" means "Bye-bye, girl!" in Italian (only Italian words used; well, he also uses "Ciao, bambino!" at one point-- the masculine form of "bambina," as something the girl used to tell him...)

MORE: e.g. "Ciao Bambina!" has sounds added at the end of words (not unusual in Romanian singing) that convey more emotion than the plain words would have: "bambina" --> bambina -aaa; "plec departe" --> plec departe-ehe; "stiu ca ma vei astepta"--> stiu ca ma vei astepta-aaa; "acum e rindul meu" --> acum e rindul me-heu; "voi lipsi in viata ta" --> voi lipsi in viata ta-aaa; "vreau sa-ti spun adio" --> vreau sa-ti spun adio-ho...
......
there are a lot of expressive sounds in these songs that come across regardless of what language one speaks... D.

More: Ciao Bambina!

overcoming unrequited love... (Japanese anime?)

more from the 1st O-zone incarnation (Dan Balan and Petru Jelihovschi)

Nu ma las the limba noastra/ I will never forsake our Romanian language

(old Romanian song; background: parts of Romania have been under foreign control at different times in history, so the official language was not Romanian)

Dar unde esti?

EVEN MORE: this was a prior incarnation of O-zone with Dan Balan and Petru Jelihovschi (as the lead singer)

MORE: backwards

Where *are* you?

key idea: you are haunting my dreams, I keep looking for you but I can't find you...

Crede-ma

MORE: live version

(Believe me)

key idea: believe me you will be the only thing on my mind when I will pass away...

among the clouds

MORE: similar theme, it's just that it's the Sea this time, long long standing popular Romanian song
...
basic idea: my love, let's get away from this flawed world: let's go up in the sky and build our own world up there, among the clouds, so we can have the perfect love that we deserve (a very alien idea for Westerners, I would think...) D.

urasil: "i love this language even if i dont understand any word."

that's sweet... (18th comment) D.

Luxor100: "I just love how they look like they are having so much fun..."

Luxor100 (21st comment): "I don't care if they're gay or not (though I doubt it, since Romania's culture is drastically different from America's). I just love how they look like they're having so much fun in that video. It makes me wish I could go dancing on the wing of an airplane with my friends. :-( "

Delia

the comments to the O-zone videos

EVEN MORE: the "studio version"
...
MORE: here's the difference: Sarbatoarea Noptilor de Vara = Summer Nights Celebration (this appears to be sung live -- noticeably lower quality for the sound, rhythm etc...)
...
seem to give good hints to people's varied reactions to the band...

there are definitely detractors but that's going to happen with pretty much anything... and not all the negative comments are just mean, some of them are valid criticism (e.g. do they lipsing in those videos? Yes! is that bad? again, the cultural standard -- and the implicit value judgment -- seems to play a big role... lipsinging is not seen as a mortal sin in Romania -- it's basically the choice to have the best performance of a song presented even if it's not happening right then...)

Delia

the lyrics (and pronunciation) are still a bit unusual

but they are easy going about that too: I remember an interview where the French asked O-zone if the lyrics for their then new song (Despre Tine, About you) were... well, better! than those for the numa numa song that made them famous but confused the heck out of foreigners lyrics-wise.

O-zone told the interviewer they were going to let her in on a little secret: the lyrics for the O-zone songs *never* change... only the title does.../joke

Delia

Radu and Arsenie, togehter, seem to have a better chance...

at recapturing "the numa numa thing": they have the easy going happiness going for them...

it appears that Dan wanted to leave the O-zone experience behind

and I think that he lost "the numa numa thing" in the process... Sugar Tunes Numa Numa (part of the album that will be released next year) seems to be his farewell song to those times: you can hear all the songs on that album and see the Balan band live in Washington D.C. on October 3rd but I don't think this new band (which if I remember right features Dan as a soloist and a couple of Moldavian instrument players that, together with Dan, moved to the US shortly after the break up of O-zone and are currently living in LA) has much to do with "the numa numa thing"... Good luck, anyways!

Delia