Give me your heart, give me your soul, give me your heart

In case this post and the one below it don't make it obvious, I was checking in on the Romanian charts today. It's something I don't do nearly as often as I should. Romania's music charts don't feel full of hits to me like, say, the Swedish charts do, but the prevalence of generally good even if not mega-international-success-in-waiting house-meets-chill dance-pop (not bouncy cheery Europop like Danny's "Tokyo" or swooshy '80s dance pop like Velvet or Star Pilots) means that those charts are generally easy and pleasant to listen to. At times, they run the risk of just washing over you, but it's a nice sort of wave even then.

Starting with something from nearby country Moldova, we've got the latest project of former O-Zone member Radu: he's co-created DJ Layla featuring Alissa's new song "Single Lady." This isn't catchy fun dance-pop in the vein of former bandmate Dan's "Crazy Loop," being much more that typical Romanian gentle house-influenced style, and so isn't as straight-up pop-style catchy, but it's a good listen if you enjoy this sort of music...and I do.



I used to be able to count on Akcent (minus one member at this point) for at least one brilliant (and brilliantly ridiculous) song per album. Songs like "Kylie" and "King Of Disco" made them the closest I was going to get to a spiritual successor to O-Zone, and the slightly more "Romanian" sounding "Jokero" was great as well. I feel as if they've been unable to deliver that one killer single recently, though. "That's My Name" is fine, but it lacks the impact of their earlier hits, which had poppier hooks--it's that "washes over you" side of things.



With Akcent not delivering in quite the same way, Crush & Alexandra Ungureanu have a chance to challenge for favorite Romania act going if they play their cards right. Their latest single is "2Nite We'll Rise," taken from their second album, which takes its title from their brilliant 2007 single "Hello" (which I'm still upset I didn't find out about until too late to make my 2007 singles countdown). Their style is still generally that gentle house-influenced one, but when they're at their best, the beats are often a bit stronger, the hooks better, and the tone more intriguing.



Swiss-Romanian singer Keo is more on the pop (maybe light pop-rock) side of things than he is electronica, but even with his new single "Falling High" that side of Romania's music scene can be seen.



Inna has a new-ish (few months old) single called "Love" out, but her single from late last year, "Hot," is still much better and, since I never wrote about it here, here it is instead. It's got that typical Romanian commercial radio dance sound, but the hook is memorable and it becomes hypnotizing if you hear it enough times.

It's like I've been asleep

Gosh, you lose power for a little while and the Internet explodes with new news. Among thing things that have happened (with no commentary for the moment) or that I just found out about, even if they happened earlier:

• Britney Spears will be releasing her new album, Circus, at the beginning of December, with the single "Womanizer" going out to radios September 22. Songs by Bloodshy & Avant, Max Martin, Dr Luke, Guy Sigsworth, and Danja.
  
• Girls Aloud's new single "The Promise" debuted on UK radio.
• Soraya's semi-danceable new single "Para ti" debuted on Spanish radio.
• Akcent's new single "Stay With Me" is out and about.
• Nick Lachey performed a new song, "All In My Head" on that High School Musical: Get In The Picture show he's hosting. It's not a ballad. Well, not really. If fan sites can be believed, it'll come out as a single, with an album, Coming Up For Air, following in January (YouTube says November). (There's also a clip of "All In My Head" from when it appeared on PromoSquad, but that's from a while ago, I think, so I'm not sure if it's still all the same.)
  
  
• The Killers' new Stuart Price-produced album is called Day & Age, comes out November 24, and is preceded by the synth-including single "Human."

(News taken from Popjustice and PubliSpain.)

If you want it so badly, then why don't you say so?

I've known about Crazy Loop, the most recent solo project/alter ego of former O-Zone member Dan Bălan, for a long time now but held off on writing about it because it all seemed very "I want to stop making incredible fun pop songs and make serious music with guitars and no fun--oh wait, you mean that's not selling? OK, I'll go back to danceable Europop music" to me. Still, the lead single may be no "Dragostea Din Tei," but very little on Earth is (no joke, it's one of the best songs ever--I'm going to get things thrown at me by schlager fans for saying this, but it's like "Alla Flickor" in that it's just such an intense burst of fun that the language barrier is completely annihilated while you jump up and down and sing along at the top of your voice), and it really is a pretty good nonsensical poppy song not too far removed from the music of his former group.



Crazy Loop (Mm-Mm-Ma)--the debut single from Dan's alter ego Crazy Loop (the fact that he felt he had to create an alter ego to indulge the Europop side of his writing sensibilites makes it seem like he's still trying to distance himself from this sort of music in a way; the video almost feels too purposefully crazy, too, at times, in a compartmentalizing/distancing himself from way--really, though, what did I want him to do, continue making music I had no interest in? I should just accept this reversion in style and get over it), "Crazy Loop" has been a chart hit in Romania (and I would imagine Moldova, as well as other nearby countries) for a while now. It's pure catchy danceable Europop, the sort that is going to drive some people absolutely crazy, but there's something about this kind of fun that I just can't pass up, and this is a great example of its subgenre. There are a few moments where, if it wasn't for the fact that the song's in English, it's so vocally similar to an O-Zone song that you really do feel like you've travelled back in time and are listening to that no longer existing group. If Dan can keep coming up with songs like this, let's hope he sticks with the fun music this time around (or at least continues the mix that he had on this past album)--Akcent may do a good job giving us some periodic singles to help make up for the loss of O-Zone, but it'd be great to be getting this sort of music from another source too; there's just as much an art to making songs like this as there is to making, say, good rock music, and it'd be a shame if someone I think is a real musical talent didn't take full advantage of that talent.

You can buy Crazy Loop's album The Power Of Shower here (physical) or just the "Crazy Loop (Mm-Mm-Ma)" single from iTunes here.

Also, I think I need to credit Pop Unlimited for writing about O-Zone recently and probably being the reason I've had this song stewing in my head again recently.

Next up: that Belgian singer.

#52 Akcent, "King Of Disco"

I wanna be on stage, I wanna feel like a star

I don't think anyone does dance-pop with ridiculous lyrics like the Romanians. Morandi's "Oh La La" had my favorite (read: ridiculous and absolutely hilarious) lyrics of last year, and Akcent's "Kylie" from 2005 was just as ridiculously catchy as it was ridiculous lyrically. Early this year, Akcent apparently decided to swap out their pop music queens, trading the Kylie references of "Kylie" for the Madonna-referencing (though not as much) "King Of Disco." What's more important than those lyrics, though, it just how catchy and fun this song is--it's definitely just as good as "Kylie," which is no mean feat. Swooshy, shiny, uptempo, highly processed, and way too danceable in a way no credible club would ever accept, "King Of Disco" is a complete "throw your hands up in the air and dance without a care in the world" song, even if you have to do it in your room because nowhere else will play it. If you wanted to get all analytical for a second, there's maybe a point to be made about how the kind of amateur goofiness and campiness of Akcent's singles like "Kylie" and "King Of Disco" is purposeful, or at least desirable--the song isn't really about being the king of disco; it's more about wanting to be and imagining that you are and that your troubles don't exist once you hit the dancefloor, which is the sort of feeling of its listeners that it's designed to play into. By being so completely over-the-top, they give you license to be as well, to forget about any ideas of credibility or seriousness or whether you even actually are a good dancer for three minutes and forty-one seconds and just have fun. I mean, if these guys can be the kings of disco, surely we all can?

Find it on: King Of Disco

I wanna be on stage, I wanna feel like a star

Romanian dance-pop group Akcent competed to represent Romania at Eurovision 2006, but, though they won the public vote, the jury's vote was enough to send Mihai Traistariu to Athens instead (which, given Mihai's placing, seems to have been the right decision). Akcent have still gone on to have a series of hits in Romania (some outside Romania, and they did have hits before trying to go to Eurovision). The song they're probably most famous for is "Kylie" (which I wrote about back here), their ode to Kylie Minogue. Their music seems to be perpetually silly, always cheesy, but also a lot of fun.

King Of Disco--the lead single from their upcoming album. In some ways, there's not very much surprising about this song; as with their previous material, it's complete dance-pop, though possibly more on the dance side than "Kylie" was. Don't worry about that change, though; despite the move closer to dance, it's still hooky and melodic, and manages to avoid seeming repetitive (the fact that it actually has verses and a chorus might help). "San Francisco" still conveniently, for all dance-pop artists, rhymes with "disco," and Akcent themselves seem incapable of giving up their gimmick of in-song references to queens of the dancefloor, though this time they've swapped Kylie for Madonna. "King Of Disco" is catchy, though, and fun in a slightly ridiculous way; though their last album as a whole had a lot of disposable songs, Akcent seem to be able to pull out a great single when they want to. And really, how many dance songs about being an ex-communist are you going to get?

I do recommend listening to some more of their songs, though from what I've heard, the singles are really all you need; still, those looking to fill a hole in their hearts left by a certain Moldovan boy band who don't mind something a little more dance-influenced could do worse than look at some of the groups coming out of Romania. I'm not sure where or if you can buy the single "King Of Disco," but you can buy their most recent album, French Kiss With Kylie, here (physical) or here (digital).

Next up: Belgian bubblegum pop about bees.