dragostea din tei

align="center" bgcolor="yellow" colspan="3"\|"Dragostea Din Tei"
lign="center" colspan="3"\|225px
lign="center" bgcolor="yellow" colspan="3"\|Single by O-Zone
lign="center" colspan="3"\|From the album DiscOZone
lign="left" valign="top"\|Single Released	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Spring 2004
lign="left" valign="top"\|Single Format	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Vinyl record (12"), CD Single
lign="left" valign="top"\|Recorded	colspan="2" valign="top"\|2003
lign="left" valign="top"\|Genre	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Pop
lign="left" valign="top"\|Song Length	colspan="2" valign="top"\|3:34
lign="left" valign="top"\|Record label	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Jive Records
lign="left" valign="top"\|Producer	colspan="2" valign="top"\|Dan Balan
lign="left" valign="top"\|Chart positions	colspan="2" valign="top"\|3 (UK), 1 (Eurochart)
gcolor="yellow" colspan="3"\|O-Zone single chronology
align="top"\|"Numai Tu" 2003	valign="top"\|"Dragostea Din Tei" 2003/2004	valign="top"\|"Despre Tine" 2004

"Dragostea Din Tei" is currently the most successful single to date by the Moldovan band O-Zone. The single was first released in 2003 in Romania, where the group currently lives and produces, and in the spring of 2004 in most other European countries. It was one of 2004's most successful summer hits, as well as one the best selling singles of the year, across Europe. Although O-Zone's version was the most popular across Europe, several other versions of the song have been made, most notably by the small Italian dance act Haiducii, who released the song in Europe at around about the same time and have been accused of taking it without permission. "Dragostea Din Tei" has also become a popular song to parody, as proven to some popularity with Gary Brolsma's "Numa Numa Dance" video.

Title translation

Dragostea Din Tei is written in Romanian and is not easy to translate efficiently due to the ambiguous translation of Din. There are several proposed translations of the title, such as Love among the linden trees. However, the intended translation is shown in the subtitles of the music video by O-Zone, which shows it as meaning Love of the linden tree. It is known that linden trees have strong lyrical associations in Romanian poetry, tied to the work of the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. Therefore the expression may be interpreted as romantic, 'linden-type' love.

Track history

  2003 O-Zone released their second album DiscOZone in Romania. The album would include "Dragostea Din Tei" although the first single from the album would be "Numai Tu". However, with it clear that "DDT" was the stand-out track, it was scheduled for release.

At around about the same time the small Italian dance act Haiducii, fronted by Paula Mitrache, discovered the track and (as is commonly believed) took it without the permission of O-Zone, and recorded their own version. By this time "Dragostea Din Tei" had been released in Romania and had a lot of success there, but as promotion in Italy begun for the cover version the group's record company began the promotional campaign across Europe. The two versions of the song had distinct differences, and whilst Haiducii hit number one in Italy, O-Zone prevailed in Europe thanks mostly to a release in the United Kingdom. Despite the fact that "DDT" had appeared on O-Zone's album six months earlier, both artists accused each other of stealing the track and whilst neither has sued as of yet it could be a future possibility.

Chart performance

"Dragostea Din Tei", the version released by O-Zone in particular, was a huge success both across and outside of Europe. It topped the European charts for several weeks and made the Top 5 on the Worldwide sales chart. Its chart runs in other countries were particularly impressive, the track spending nine months in the Dutch charts and four in the tricky UK charts where foreign language artists rarely enter at all. In the United Kingdom O-Zone were tipped for a huge number one, but only made number three due to Mario Winans' "I Don't Wanna Know" holding onto the top spot and a Euro 2004 single by 4-4-2 being released in the same week, possibly because of the limited availability of copies of the single. O-Zone would overtake both these tracks and several other big hits in its chart stay, however, which lasted until the middle of September.

Music videos

Due to the expensive promotion put into both versions of "Dragostea Din Tei", the music videos for both the O-Zone and Haiducii versions weren't too disappointing. The O-Zone featured the three members of the group singing on an airplane, often standing on the wings, although there didn't appear to be much of a story to the video. The Haiducii version had more of a storyline to it, with an emphasis on CCTV footage of a man supposedly being watched by his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend.

Other versions

"Numa Numa Dance"

The most popular meme of "Dragostea Din Tei" is by the American teenager Gary Brolsma, mainly because of the speed in which it became known in the Internet, but also due to appearances on both CNN and VH1. For more information see the meme's own article.

The "Riot" version

Similiar to the above "Numa Numa Dance", this version was made very early on and featured a middle-aged man smashing a vinyl record over his head whilst singing to "Dragostea Din Tei".

Other versions

In Brazil, the singer Latino created his own version of "Dragostea Din Tei". Called "Festa no Ap", the song's lyrics are somewhat indecent, talking about a wild party. For having different lyrics, this song resembles "Dragostea Din Tei" only in rhythm and melody. The Spanish humorist brothers Los Morancos parodied the song for their TV program as "Marica t, marica yo" ("Queer you, queer I") with gay lyrics. This version has become more popular than O-Zone's in Chile. A Dutch version by De Feestridders, which criticizes the use of speed cameras in the Netherlands, also exists. There are several other memes of "Dragostea Din Tei" in circulation, making the song one of the most parodied of recent times.