There is a song which you hear everywhere here. It’s by a Romanian boy band called O-Zone and its title escapes me, but its main lyric goes “Numa Numa Yay. Numa Numa Numa Yay”. Romanians told me that it was a huge hit all over Europe, but I suspected they were exaggerating or being misled by an excitably patriotic media “A Belgian bought that Romanian record! We are finally recognized in the west of the continent! First Adrian Mutu and now this! Romania is on the European map!”
But it’s true. In Spain on a train I heard a father singing it to his young pissed off looking son after a day on the beach. Then in a record store in Barcelona, at the bank of listening posts next to new albums by The Cure, Prodigy, and Beyonce, was the O-Zone album. It really IS big all over Europe. It is, I’m led to believe, this year’s big Euro summer hit. It makes sense – it obeys all the rules of Euro summer hits, which are of course:
- Your record’s hook line shall either make no sense (eg that Spanish bipididibipi thing from last year), or be in some kind of grammatically correct but not normal English (eg “All that she wants is another baby”, or “I’m serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer”) [Of course my Romanian is not good enough yet to know whether "Numa Numa Yay" is in fact a searing critique of Kant or Wittgenstein, but I think it probably isn't]
- Each year’s hit shall come from a different country (eg all of the above) in a kind of rotating pan-euro equality scheme. Possibly it’s a Socrates project.
- The bands that make the songs shall commit to only have one summer of success before vanishing into the unknown. Whatever happened to Aqua? TaTu? Snap? Ace of Base? Does anyone know? And does anyone care?
- The songs must be catchy but, ultimately, rubbish.
So, from this we can conclude that O-zone are already heading into the sunset, and that next year’s big hit will be a Byelorussian number entitled “lobynobysoby” or “I am crestfallen in sincerity”
Until then, once you get numa numa yay into your brain it’s absolutely impossible to get it out.
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9 comments:
I have it on good authority that….
- TaTu are currently working in the Moscow branch of MacDonalds
- Ace of Base hand out small pencils and big yellow bags at the Gothenberg branch of Ikea (living in danger indeed)
- Aqua are employed as elves/gnomes at a Father Christmas themepark in Northern Sweden. At present they are steeling themselves for the busiest time of the year.
And furthermore….
- Whigfield is employed on the cosmetics counter in a Stockholm department store
- 2 in a Room work in a water park in Fuengirola. They are largely employed in handing out rubber rings, but have been known to work in the Refreshments Hut.
No, Whigfield was sacked from that job for constantly going on about how she used to be famous "shit business, really".
She now works at one of those little tables in a supermarket handing out small samples of starling-liver pate on pieces of cream crackers.
Well I never, I didn't know that about Whigfield. Every days a school day.
Since my last comment, I have now heard about Snap!. Apparently the majority of the band work in a drop in centre on the outskirts of Bonn, 'giving it back to the kids'. Turbo D, though, is employed as bouncer on the door of the infamous 'KinoKlub' in Dusseldorf.
Hey, found this site completely by accident, but wanted to let you guys know that the Numa Numa song has become huge here too. And by here i mean Alberta, Canada.
THIS SONG ROCKS MY FRIEND DOWNLOADED IT FROM HIS COMPUTER AND I HEARD IT AND I LOVE IT AND I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THERE SAYING YOUVE GOT LISTEN TO IT AND IM FROM BELLEVILLE NJ,IN AMERICA AND ITS NOW MY FAVIORITE SONG IN THE WHOLE WORLD!!! ROCK ON WITH YOURE BAD SELF NUMA NUMA
i also stumbled upon this hit but i have never heard it befor though i live in the U.S. and i dont think i have ever heard that on any radio station i was looking up somthing on google video and i was listening to the music and it was this song and i surched the web and i cane across this site and i went to win. media player and ur right it was the same song im kinda hooked im attempting to get some of the class to listen to it lol
Hey i might be the the most crazy person ever but during one of computer classes i hacked into the school system and i played it on the intercome for the hole period
The song's called Dragostea Din Tei. It's my favorite. I have the whole thing memorized, and I'm an American. The title translates to "love from the linden trees" and the chorus translates (or so I have gathered) as "you want to go but you don't want don't want me, don't want don't want me, don't want don't want don't want me. Your face and the love from the linden trees, and I remember your eyes." The gist of this is that it makes no more sense if you know Romanian than if you don't. The song is gibberish. They played it at every dance at nerd camp. Brilliant.
I dont know if this the right place ill try anyting at the moment. i used to have a lot of romanian friends that i have lost contact with. i like there countrys music for some reason or that i grew up listing to hungarian music. i used to have a whole bunch of cds that were stolen from my car i have no clue what the songs were called i think there is one i can remeber the name of its my favorite and im not sure i am spelling it right i can say it not spell it my friends didnt teach me to spell. so anyways its called tabloc or tubloc something along the lines if you can help me out send me email to www.myspace.com/mel7056 thanks i think!
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