In the Kingdom of the Bland

I got a very nice email from a Danish bloke called Hans-Christian (his last name isn't Andersen, you'll be saddened to learn), complimenting me on my blog. His wife is Romanian and he'd happened across it in his webwanderings. Anyway, he linked to me here (as well as a very interesting blog from another Danish based Transylvanian), and mentioned how much he'd enjoyed seeing some music videos. Just to add to his collection then I thought I'd mention last week's (MTV) European Music Awards which were held, coincidentally, in Copenhagen. I didn't watch it, or pay it much attention, but I do know that DJ Project won the "Best Romanian Act" award, which just goes to show what a bad year it's been for Romanian pop. Last year, there were seemingly lots of catchy, fun, hummable ditties out there, whereas this year... well, let's just say there were fewer. (To be fair, it's obviously not just a Romanian thing - after all Justin Timberlake and the endlessly tiresome Red Hot Chilli Pepers seemed to carry off a number of the bigger awards).

Anyway, DJ Project, while inoffensive and fairly good at what they do, are also pretty bland and insipid. Maybe they'e great live or something, because whatever catapulted them to glory is not apparent from their big hit of this year, Inca O Noapte.

The competition was not up to much though, with the other nominees being:
(a) The dirgelike Morandi (the only good thing about this video for "Falling Asleep", their hit of this year, is a cool little effect they do (on the video, not the song) with iron filings half way through. One you've seen that, you can switch off.
(b) Parazitii, a rap band, who are kind of OK, but of whom I have heard nothing for over a year so I have no idea what they did to get nominated this time round
(c) Blondy, your basic lowest-comon-denominator-bimbo-pop-blonde-with-deep-cleavage. Still, this one is not as terrible as most of what she has done. It's at least catchy.
and finally...
(d) Simplu, whose song Imi merge bine, was easily the best piece of Romanian pop produced this year (or at least the best that I got to hear). No idea why it didn't walk away with the award.