Arsenie Toderas (aka Arsenium): Rumadai

MORE AGAIN: Arsenie explains his song to the German media

MORE: made the Romanian top hits 2008 (so did a couple of Dan's songs: "Take me higher" -- is this part of the Electro house project he did with that Italian DJ, DJ Ross, ; Crazy Loop; Johanna)

STILL MORE: live performance? (it *is* reminiscent of the numa numa song, as someone mentions in the comments-- 9th comment)

EVEN MORE: there is one line in Romanian" o.35 time mark: "Sa zburam cu toti pe luna" literal translation: "Let's all fly to the moon!"; meaningful translation: "Let's have a blast!"

MORE: definitely a "party song"... not bad... upbeat and somewhat funny -- the apparently non-sequitur parts (e.g. chorus: "everybody, lets dance in the Disco (...) I wanna take you from Paris to San Francisco" (...) "I feel so high" ... hmmm...now *that* might explain it:) just kidding...

looks like people already love it: fan video
...
another song from his upcoming album, to be released in the fall... D.

Arsenie Toderas (aka Arsenium): Wake up

well... he's certainly still out there... trying something "different"... D.

Arsenie Toderas: the French can't get enough...

...of him! D.

"Loca" (one of Arsenie's songs) gets its own parody...

MORE: the original (Loca)
...
... it's about a female boss (Sefa) D.

Arsenie sings "Love me tender"...

he packs a lot of emotion in his voice! (more than Elvis -- a surprise to me...) D.

Arsenie is still out there trying something different...

Leave me alone D.

why??? Dan sings "the Ma Ya Hi song" aka "Dragostea din tei" with Lucas Prata

live at Whitehouse in NY, in the Hamptons

bad idea! it would never match the original version... (Arsenie and Radu DID bring a lot to the interpretation -- they both have very unusual voices and the Romanian version was just so much better to boot....)

Delia

yes, they could sing...: O-zone a capella

Oriunde ai fi/Wherever you will be

Delia

P.S. as I was saying, Dan can sing D.

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.

Arsenie deserves props...

... for trying and trying and trying...(he never seems to stop searching for something different...)
D.

More from Arsenie...

"My heart is empty" (or something like that)

Delia

P.S. he doesn't sound bad at all in English, it's just that he could use some pointers (e.g. the difference in pronunciation between "here" and "hear")

P.P.S. may favorite joke in this line: Berlitz ad

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...

*too* much fun?

some people claimed they were gay... I would think, most likely not... taking the culture into consideration, nothing in their interactions made me think they would be gay (it's quite common for male friends to put their hands on each other's shoulders etc. ... now, if I saw them walk hand in hand on the street... or gaze at a guy the way Craig gazed at Charlie... I would have serious questions, but nothing in this video makes me think they are gay) D.

one of the O-zone songs was a "remake" of an existing Romanian song

MORE: having what looks like loads of fun ...(on a Romanian TV program)

De ce plang chitarele

The original "numa, numa dance": Romanian folk music&dance

incidentally, the expression "numa, numa" is commonly used in Romanian folk music and dance (but Dan did not mean this kind of "numa, numa": in his song, there were really two separate words "nu" and "ma" -- which should have a symbol on top)

Delia

P.S. Authentic Romanian folk dance can be very demanding but O-zone just picked some "easy steps" for their clip and you could still tell they were no dancers... (they were mostly having fun...). However, Arsenie did have the potential to dance well -- would have been hard to guess by watching him in the O-zone videos -- and proved it during his participation in the Romanian equivalent to "Dancind with the Stars." D.

what's this all about?

just an attempt to figure out what made "the numa numa thing" what it was/is... whatever that may be; this is by no means a "fan blog" -- just an exploration of the extended topic (will look not only at the song itself and at the other O-zone songs but also at the post O-zone songs by Dan Balan, Arsenie Toderas and Radu Sarbu); I plan to do this pretty much the way I write my craigslist criticism blog (more or less, a record of my thoughts on the topic) D.