| I was quoted
in Billboard this week..
March 19, 2005
Web Clip Buoys Novelty
Song
BY MICHAEL PAOLETTA
One novelty song was
omnipresent throughout Europe in summer 2004: "Dragostea Din Tei."
Dueling versions of the
energetic dance-pop track battled territory by territory, with the version
by O-Zone finishing at No. 1 on the year-end Eurochart Hot 100 Singles survey
after spending 12 weeks in the chart's pole position from June to
September.
The rival version, by
Romanian-born/Italy-based TV star/singer Haiducci on Italian label Universo,
ranked No. 9 on the year-end tally.
Originally issued on Romania's
Media Services label, O-Zone's "Dragostea" was internationally licensed by
Italian independent dance label Time, which then licensed the track to labels
around the world, including Jive in the United Kingdom, Island in Germany
and Ultra in the United States.
Last fall, Ultra released
the original Romanian version of the bubbly track, followed one month later
by a newly recorded English-language version, with vocals by Lucas Prata.
Both versions—which appear on O-Zone's "DiscOzone" album—went nowhere
fast on this side of the Atlantic.
That is, until a homemade
video of the track—innocently created by 19-year-old New Jersey native
Gary Brolsma—began appearing on several Web sites late last year. The
buzz became so loud that NBC's "Today" invited Prata and Dan Balan (formerly
of O-Zone) to perform the song on the show last month.
Following this performance,
Ultra sent a Today Show Mix of the song—now titled "Dragostea Din Tei
(Ma Ya Hi)" by Balan featuring Prata—to radio.
The original version, penned
by Balan, is published by EMI Music Publishing Romania. The English version
was written by Balan and Prata, whose songs are handled by 150 Lafayette
Music/Lookieluke Songs (ASCAP).
These days, many are wondering
if the Prata-fueled, Valentin-remixed version will be as popular here as
the original Romanian version was around the world.
"I'm hanging on to my seat
belt these days," Ultra president Patrick Moxey says. He acknowledges that
the label has been "working the record" for eight months without much success.
"Now, we're trying to break it bigger."
Recently, Ultra signed
off on a request from "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to use the song on an upcoming
episode. The track is also a hit at Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store,
where it has been No. 1 on the dance page.
"The video is giving the
song a second life here," says Nashville-based club DJ Ron Slomowicz, who
believes people are responding to the video's "do-it-yourself approach and
the sense of it being an inside joke."
Perhaps it is too much
of a joke for some stations. "We didn't attach ourselves to the record too
much because it was too novelty," WKTU New York music director Skyy Walker
says. "We weren't sure if our audience was ready for one of these."
That said, Walker says
the station is still "up in the air" about adding the track. "We're keeping
an eye on it."
In this issue, without
much radio airplay, "Dragostea" resides at No. 74 on the Pop 100 and at No.
73 on the Hot Digital Songs chart.
According to Nielsen SoundScan,
the track has been steadily increasing in digital sales during the past five
weeks; it has totaled more than 32,000 paid downloads.
"It seems that every day
something big is happening with this record," notes Moxey, who has Brolsma
and his video to thank.
DOING THE NUMA NUMA
In Brolsma's video—which
debuted on the Web site newgrounds.com in December and has since spread to
other sites)—Brolsma is shown lip-synching to the song's original version
while doing what he calls the "Numa Numa Dance." Throughout, with arms flailing
and head bobbing to and fro, Brolsma remains seated. The video has received
more than 2 million hits at newgrounds.com alone.
Unbeknownst to Brolsma,
he has become a one-man marketing and promotion team for Ultra. Indeed, the
song's stateside success may lie in his hands—or in his quirky, humorous
video, as it were.
Brolsma is the first to
admit that all the attention has caught him off guard. "I'm surprised by
what's going on," he tells Billboard. "I never saw what I was doing, when
I was making the video, as something that could be used to help promote"
the record.
He says he was simply fooling
around with a song that a friend had sent him. "It was me being spontaneous,"
he says. "I didn't set out to do anything, really. It's pretty weird what's
happened since."
None of this is lost on
Prata, whose radio interviews and club bookings have increased since the
start of the year. Signed directly to Ultra, Prata agreed to sing the English
version because he thought it might help to break him in the United States
and Europe. Apparently, he thought right.
"There is more activity
on my Web site [lucasprata.com] as well as message boards devoted to me and
the song," he says. "I've been getting calls from journalists around the
world. You can't buy publicity like this if you try."
For Prata, whose career
is managed and booked by Nene Musik's Ruben Martinez, the timing could not
be better. His second Ultra single, "And She Said," arrives next month. "Sure,
'Ma Ya Hi' has helped launch me," Prata notes, "but I have my own music and
a solo career to back it up."
Martinez is also booking
Brolsma for special appearances.
Meanwhile, Balan, who left
boy trio O-Zone—which hails from the eastern European republic of
Moldova—is living in New York where he is shopping demos of his new,
still-nameless English-language rock band.
"I'm going back to my rock
roots," says Balan, who prior to O-Zone was a member of rock band Inferialis.
"But I will do what's needed of me to make 'Dragostea Din Tei' bigger in
the U.S."
Whether it hits the U.S.
jackpot remains unclear. Pointing to Los Del Rio's "Macarena" and Las Ketchup's
"The Ketchup Song (Hey Hah)," respectively, Slomowicz succinctly offers,
"Sometimes [international] novelty records are huge here, and sometimes they're
not." |
