Good old manele, ya either love em or hate em. Really. Well, provided you are Romanian that is.
Pie… what the bloody hell are you talking about? Well… Dixit Wikipedia:
Manele (from Romanian, fem. sg. manea; pl. manele, the plural form being more common) is a music style from Romania.
The manele can be divided into “classical manele” and “modern manele”. The “classical manele” are a Turkish-derived genre performed by lăutari in a lăutărească manner, while the “modern manele” are a mixture of Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Bulgarian and Serbian elements, generally using modern (electronic) instruments and beats.
So manele is a type of singing. I dumped a bunch of links in this post, which I do not expect people to click on. They are not in a particular order because that seems like to much work and this is a lazy post. – yes it would have made sense to fit the links to the text. But life does not always make sense. All the links are music and none of them are rick rolls. So I dunno click one or more. See how many you like, if any. Let’s just start with one.
Few musical genres created so much division in the Romanian cultural landscape. For some, it was the music for parties and gatherings, fun and unpretentious; for others, a sign of low culture, no class, little education, low standards and poor taste. In many circles listening to manele got you immediately douchebag status. There were few in the middle on this issues, although the saying goes everyone likes manele after the second bottle of wine. The hate was particularly prominent among fans of heavy metal and folk music.
Now is there some truth to the previous snobbish stereotype? Like in most cases yes. Listening to manele is somewhat correlated with low socioeconomic status, drinking wine mixed with cola and being functionally illiterate. Although, a few years ago, the phenomenon did go full circle when some hipsters started listening to manele ironically. Usually after the scared hipster got out of a cab in the bad part of town, to enter a local seedy dive bar which had a special, safe, but vaguely authentic manele party going on.
Manele are sort of an eclectic mix of sounds sang originally by Roma / Gypsies (depending on preferred nomenclature) singers at parties and events. The have a very similar style and lyrics, grouped around the main aspects of a human life – money, love, loss, money, women, enemies who hate you but are not as good as you so you always come on top, ass shaking and money.
The classic manea was a fairly slow paced mostly instrumental love song of Turkish origin during the 1800s. The modern manea as we know it started to appear in marginalized communities and had – like many such musical origin stories – an element of protest to exclusion in general and the high-brow culture of the more intellectual elite, if you will. Intellectuals which promptly criticized it eclectic mix of Balkan sounds, the crude language and sexual and violent elements of the lyrics. With the obvious laments of the effect on the children. So the protest factor was a success on that front, all things considered.
Further opposition came from mainstream Lăutarii – singers of drinking and party music – which though it brings their profession – a rather lucrative and privileged one during communism – in disrepute. This is probably part of the source of the division caused by the music. The other part being it kinda sucks.
Who critiques the critics though? Well other critics usually… And so it happened. Some came to the defense of the manele, simply stating that like in all forms, there are good ones and bad ones and it can be a valuable p[art of the cultural landscape. The music was studied at the University level both a cultural and melodic point of view. There is some truth, off course, to snobs piling on popular music. The history, the communities and conditions that generate it generally are worth studying. Although just because something came from a marginalized community does not make it good, or opposing it racist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y01xp6GsKSg
The modern form is seen by some proponents of the genre as a degraded version that focuses to much of money and sex and lost some of its roots, which I think can be seen as somewhat paralleling some criticisms I hear of hip-hop culture in the States. This has probably something to do with the fall of communism which brought a new found freedom for artists and a possibly to get rich (or die trying). Capitalism man, it ruins everything by excessive commercialization. The change of the manea, like all music in fact, can be seen as a chronicle of the changes in society, for people who study these sort of things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0C3AEVbgXY
The honest truth is that singers of manele are, generally, not bad singers. They have a good voice and quite a bit of practice. And there were cases when prominent manele singers sang different styles of music and did a damn good job at it. So it is mostly the form that is disliked.
There are also parodies in the genre
While the 1980s manele still had the classic instruments like accordion, violin, dulcimer, bass and cobza, after the 90s electronic instruments became more propeminent, although some of the classics are still kept.
In the end, keep in mind the humble manea your next American party. Alternatively, sit on your American porch, drink your American whisky and listen to manele – in order to be culturally appropriate and respect the Romanian tradition, this should be loud enough for your neighbors to hear (and I realize your neighbor may be quite some way). Also eat roasted sunflower seeds and spit the husks on the ground.
Comments
119 responses to “Manele: brief analysis of a cultural phenomenon with music links”
money, love, loss, money, women, enemies who hate you but are not as good as you so you always come on top, ass shaking and money.
*patiently waits for HM to appear*
That’s his summoning ritual?
Apparently. He showed up, didn’t he?
Which one are you in these vids?
ha ha ha
Sorry I’m late, but this is fun Music! Almost Reggae
The Romulletard
After listening to about 15 seconds, I can believe this. However, I can also believe the line about people liking it after enough booze was drunk. Particularly if the musicians are good looking.
The musicians are rarely good looking. The dancers sometimes are
The dancers are a bit Thicc.
I can see why people like this and why I wouldn’t unless I was drinking. But after viewing a few of the videos I have one question.
What’s with the midget?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1C_y0u3Nq6U
He is probably one of the top 3 most famous manele singers… Adrian Child Wonder would be a word by word translation of his scene name
Do not
look down onunderestimate the little peoplehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Ned
I recognize the girl in the second clip from Q’s “Hot girls with musical instruments” gallery the other day. Or maybe it was the “Future carpal tunnel syndrome” gallery.
Adrian Minune looks like the Romanian Patton Oswalt.
And that is quite the power mullet on Sandu Ciorba.
It’s sweet that he made that little guy with down syndrome his partner.
For some reason, all traditional forms of music, when provided w/ some alcohol, hairspray, and synthesizers, all end up sounding like variations of Reggaeton / Mariachi
i think the singing style is cool; i don’t know anything about it but it seems consistent w/ similar variations you find all across Mediterranean + North Africa, w/ different instrumentation and different tempo. I think there’s an umbrella term to describe vocal styles that have lots of those half/quarter-step vibrato trills, because its everywhere once you get outside “100% western” music.
My thinking here is similar.
Interesting…
It may have something to do with the Islamic call to prayer. The vocal style of Flamenco derives directly from it, which seems to share the characteristics of what you describe.
Probably a lot of Balkan/ eastern Europe music as well as Southern Europe / Iberian music have middle eastern influence due to the Muslim interaction, if it is Islamic or something older who knows
“the Islamic call to prayer”
yeah, it could be. but i suspect the Adhan is just ‘another song’ and the reason it sounds the way it does (littered with all those 1/2-step trills) is because that was already the dominant mode of melody all across the med/north africa/near east. but it could certainly have spread/reinforced itself w/ aid of Islam
you find the same sounds/patterns in many places Islam remains a minority, for instance. i think it probably has origins in ancient greek/turkish music.
I think of Mariachi as being Bavarian.
It might be.
https://www.thoughtco.com/does-mexican-music-have-german-roots-3078101
New BraunFels Texas, , that’s where it began, The Texas Tornadoes
I posted last time about the Romanian song about a Central American country that’s a dance challenge fad in East Asia, so here’s a different video
https://youtu.be/dqvr5ptIe-s
Feet are cut off, but you wouldn’t be watching the footwork anyways.
That’s going to make it hard to dance.
Now that I’ve actually watched the videos, I’m picking up a strong aroma of unplanned pregnancies out of wedlock as well as the occasional honor-killing, along with a slight whiff of alcoholism. A little like our Appalachia, but with more tuxedo trousers.
And this was supposed to be a new comment, so, take that into account and it will make more sense.
One with footwork
https://youtu.be/f4zi8DLsxOM
I’m speechless.
I’m sure there are shelves of books about it… but there’s something odd about the east-asian passion for “imitation” (a la ‘karaoke’)
they will pick up almost anyone else’s cultural detritus, and end up reproducing it with laser-printer accuracy, and even go so far as to treat it like a competitive-sport. to the point where they’re often ‘better’ at these things than the native-people who originated said ‘thing’.
everyone does similar stuff in lesser-degrees, but the japanese in particular are ridiculous abt it.
Like STEM?
I think their capability with any ‘rote-learned’ material probably connects to same thing, sure.
I think if you went to your local book store you’d find at least a few shelves with books about cultural appropriation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFDquiBU3A&list=PLlxzTYKtDmmR1_Yb_uHx0H_UERSkCahqh&index=8&t=0s
Thanks, that was a good video. I remember the criticism of US citizens, that we don’t travel outside the US and have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world, and when we visit another country we expect them to speak English and adhere to our customs. Looks like that criticism is still valid, but the offenders are on the left instead of the hicks in flyover country.
Yeah, the (mostly) left is pretty clueless about the reality of other cultures outside of (perhaps) Western Europe, and only there because the similarities to our own.
Note: my link wasn’t meant specifically for you, TOK, but the topic is cultural appropriation in Japan, so I thought it was relevant.
my point was less about the narrow-idea of ‘culture-borrowing’ itself, and more to do with their natural technical affinity for it.
I mean, americans ‘culturally appropriate’ en masse, but mostly in the process dilute/distort the orig. stuff down to a mere-caricature (bad-fashion, or shitty fast-casual-food like Chilis, “Mexican Egg-Rolls” or something)
Japs otoh, takes everything from ‘western classical music’ to ‘breakdancing‘ or ‘drag racing‘… and goes at them not like they’re “cute stuff to idly consume’” (american way), but more like, “Olympic-level-sports which we should spende entire lives developing total mastery of”
hence the Japanese Rockabilly guys that are like 200%-more-rockabilly than anything the US has ever seen
I’ll concede that Japan handles cultural imports differently than America does in some ways, but they fuck up foreign food just as badly if not worse than we do. Pineapple pizza has nothing on the abominations that Japan creates.
The Japanese Rockabilly guys are several shades of awesome. I’ve seen quite a few of them at Viva, vintage everything, pompadours that put Johnny Bravo to shame, and enjoying the music and culture more then most of the other guests.
The japanese were very enthusiastic early-adopters of hiphop in the 1980s.
A lot of british hiphop people got their influences in the genre by way of the Japanese first – e.g. malcolm mclaren, coldcut, james lavelle of mo’wax – all were fans of tokyo fashion-fads, and every time they’d go over there, they’d hear local DJ’s playing relatively-obscure NY rap + electro records.
I disagree about “better”.
It always looks like they’re phoning it it. Where’s the heart? Where’s the raw talent?
yes, i put ‘better’ in quotes because… if there’s a criticism, its that’s there sometimes 0 originality, no passion, and its more a purely-technical exercise, which never evolves any ‘art form’ aspects of the thing, and instead treats things as pure-imitation of some fixed ideal.
that said, *some* things, they develop a true native passion for, and they gradually inject their own style/substance to the thing, and make it their own. But it usually starts as imitation. And i just think their ‘unique capabilities to imitate’ are interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_oLBzTAkGs&index=6&list=RDbPn6Dw4f26Q
Compare:
Asian Schoolgirls at the beginning to Miami Beach trash at 2:45
Miami Beach trash shuffle dances better. You can’t teach that.
Not to say that this is always the case.
Anrel Pineda might just be better than Steve Perry.
https://youtu.be/FWC9MHgpL8U?t=130
I’m not entirely sure what I just saw, but I dig it and I’d like to see more of it. Preferably over a few drinks.
This is just the cure for my insomnia.
You drank enough to fall asleep?
Almost. Until I clicked on Gustave’s link. Now I’m risen.
TBH, I dig the music, Pie. Not much of an endorsement, but …
The chick in the thong is nice, at least
*whispers*
I don’t think she knows how to play the violin!
I can live with that.
The redhead works too.
I don’t know nuthin bout no musical genres, but THAT is what a woman’s butt should look like.
OT
Best AnCap websites?
Glibertarians.com
I’m afraid that might be true.
Pardon my OT: President Trump pardons Oregon ranchers who inspired occupation of federal refuge
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-trump-pardons-ranchers-bundy-hammond-oregon-20180710-story.html
“who inspired occupation of federal refuge”
I’d change that to
“Who inspired the temporary, off-season occupation of a bird-watching shack on land that the government nationalized.”
Damn! Good. Aside from the original facts of the case,upward resentencing, particularly post-release, is unconscionable and a violation of 5A.
Thanks for another great glimpse into Romanian culture, Pie. I find your articles fascinating.
Besides the vampires who have powers of seduction/cheat, I’d basically be Brad Pitt if I moved to Romania.
BUSTED!
Brett M. Kavanaugh thanked President Trump for his nomination to the Supreme Court on Monday night. Almost immediately, he made a thoroughly strange and quite possibly bogus claim.
“No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination,” Kavanaugh said.
It may seem like a throwaway line — a bit of harmless political hyperbole. But this was also the first public claim from a potential Supreme Court justice who will be tasked with interpreting and parsing the law down to the letter. Specificity and precision are the name of the game in Kavanaugh’s chosen profession. How on earth could he be so sure?
He’s a liar! Just like the TRUMPITLER.
Resist! Resist!
How far gone do you have to be as an editor to allow this to make it to print? Best part – they have this crap behind a paywall.
Democracy dies in darkness.
“How far gone do you have to be as an editor”
The editor’s job is to make sure the ideological bent is preserved. So, completely in the tank is the answer.
“How on earth could he be so sure?”
Maybe he knows something that you don’t. After all, he was there, and you weren’t.
Maybe he knows something that you don’t.
Presidential colonoscopy.
Admittedly it does sound like something Trump ghost written.
Yeah, its a pretty stupid thing for Kavanaugh to say. Psst, Brett, you don’t need to fire up Trump’s supporters; they’ll back you because Trump nominated you. And you can’t placate Trump’s enemies, because they marinate in insensate hatred for anything remotely connected to Trump and will not, cannot, be appeased.
Beyond that, there are reasons to doubt it. Trump actually leaned quite heavily on a list of names he did not put together himself but were instead provided by the conservative Federalist Society — a group whose ideological diversity is not exactly vast. Trump did not stray from that list for either this selection or Neil M. Gorsuch’s. And Trump spent a relatively brief two-week period making this decision. Barack Obama, by contrast, spent about a month reviewing his options before he nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Good grief. Obama spent a fucking month reviewing potential appointees, and then pulled Kagan out of his ass? Who the fuck else was on the list? Wapner?
“I know you’ve been sworn, sir, and I have read your complaint.”
“a group whose ideological diversity is not exactly vast”
There shouldn’t be ANY ideological diversity.
FOLLOW THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION.
Have you tried reading that thing? It’s like a hundred years old and written in cursive. I’ve seen user manuals clearer than that.
Something tells me Obama didn’t consult an ideologically diverse group either, despite the author trying to imply it with the “about a month” line.
What are you talking about? There are number of leftist ideologies.
You have the leftists that think people like Lenin, Chavez, Castro, and their ilk were all OK and that communism/socialism is the answer to all ills. The ones that think Stalin or Mao were cooler than the previous lot, because they really stuck it to the wreckers & kulaks. And then you have the ones that think the guy that really played the game the best was Pol Pot, because that dude really knew how to rack up the body count as a percentage of population.
Run by me again the justices Obama appointed who represent a broad spectrum of ideologies? Sorry, Wise Latina and a previous employee of two separate Democratic administrations doesn’t strike me as picking across the aisle.
I love that there is a contradiction in the very same paragraph:
Trump actually leaned quite heavily on a list of names he did not put together himself but were instead provided by the conservative Federalist Society
A list that was put together during the election or shortly after, if memory serves.
Trump spent a relatively brief two-week period making this decision.
Which is it? Trump spent barely two weeks making this SCOTUS nomination, or Trump started preparing for SCOTUS nominations years ago?
but were instead provided by the conservative Federalist Society
Good!
/proud dues paying FedSoc member
By the way, more than one of the people who were on the list are FedSoc members. Good org, usually libertarian friendly, and hold enough clout to pull the big names. I’ll give them money well before TOS.
Kagan did her job – she argued for ObamaCare as Solicitor General, and she voted for it as Justice.
Nope, no conflict of interest or ethical problem there. And that weak-kneed pussy Roberts let her. And, of course, the mouthbreathing Repub Senators didn’t even ask get her to take a position on whether she had a conflict in the biggest case in years before handing her a lifetime appointment.
Sotomayor is the better of the two because she has actual opinions that even if I don’t agree with a lot of them, she has a rationale for them. Kagan is an insufferable partisan.
“No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination,” Kavanaugh said.
“We play different kinds of music. Country, and Western.”
My favorite song is “My wife ran away with my best friend, and I miss him.”
Hey, Pie. That was fun, and I even clicked all the links. I’d still like to visit Romania.
Whoa. While I was getting lunch today.
That could go either way, but I’m leaning towards a prog who thinks the Bundys should be executed.
Or a birder who likes shacking up with the college chicks at the nearby Malheur Field Station.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that every story about the kids stuck in a cave had to refer to them as “Thai boys?” Like, no other description could be given?
Well, the other descriptor was soccer players. But that could be confused for a bunch of adults, which gets fewer clicks and eyeballs than a tragedy befalling children.
Old men with candy had their curiosity piqued, I’m sure.
Like, no other description could be given?
“Not lady-boy, boys”?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-europe-nato-20180710-story.html#
So, they’re banking on Trump being out of office in good old bureaucratic can kicking fashion.
Are they wrong?
Pretty sure with a little digging around you can find some nutters claiming (already) that Trump is planning to make himself President-for-Life.
By 2021, I expect him to declare himself God-Emperor. And dress in the fashion of the Caesars.
Rather than another link, I’ll just throw this gem here, courtesy of CNN:
I mean, how can Trump fail with nefarious Russian backing?
With $100,000, some duct tape, bluetooth headsets, and a pack of bubble gum, there’s nothing Russians can’t do.
So six different people all answered the question in exactly the same way? Sure, bub.
Russians don’t take a dump without a plan. And senior captains don’t start something this dangerous without having thought the matter through.
Have you ever seen a Russian drink water?
I love it!
Alternatively, sit on your American porch, drink your American whisky and listen to manele – in order to be culturally appropriate and respect the Romanian tradition, this should be loud enough for your neighbors to hear (and I realize your neighbor may be quite some way). Also eat roasted sunflower seeds and spit the husks on the ground.
My neighbors already know I’m weird. And I love sunflower seeds!
Thanks, Pie. Really a fun article!
African Place-Names, Etymologized
“Land of the Milking Nomads” and simply “Shrimp”
Makes sense to me
So, it’s basically like one of the old timey European maps with, “Here be dragons”?
Land of a lake and Here, Water are my favorites. Honorable mentions to Land of the Blacks and Southern Land of the Blacks.
)
No, its far more literal to the native language/words.
imagine they converted all the native-american/foreign US-state names to their English equivalent
e.g.
Alaska (Aleut): “object toward which the action of the sea is directed.””
Arizona (O’odham): “good oaks.”
Arkansas: (a French pronunciation of an Algonquin name for the Quapaw people: akansa) “downriver people” or “people of the south wind,”
Delaware: (named after Baron De la Warr (Thomas West, 1577 – 1618) – surname ultimately comes from de la werre, meaning “of the war”
Idaho: (Athabaskan) “enemy,”, or “where the enemy lives” (apparently some scary motherfukers lived there)
Iowa (Dakota): “sleepy ones.”
Michigan: a French spelling of Old Ojibwa (Algonquian) meshi-gami, meaning “big lake.”
etc
“Land of the Burnt faced”
Home of Vexation.
West of Djibouti, North Ethiopia, is “Land of He Who Talks Too Much” (near Lalibela)
I wonder if its associated w/ fact that Christians got there early, and the place is known for having historical “christian proselytizers”
so what you’re saying is Romania is the Appalachia of Europe?
You should see Bulgaria…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohwAjCI4VM
… Hobbit
none of them are rick rolls
It is taking me all the self control I can muster to not go back into the article and perform the appropriate edits to the linked videos. Because that would be wrong. Very wrong.
I DARE YOU!
I guess I deserved that…
Next time, don’t poke at the bear.
Which one of you Florida glibs was this?
Jesus Christ, a Romanian version of Turbo-Folk!
Fucking hell, a small reminder of why we got the fuck out of there!