Dracula's Guide to Romania

Definition

The Romanian dictionary describes manele as: “A love song of oriental origin, with a tender and drawn-out melody.”

While Wikipedia describes it as: “a genre of pop folk music from Romania“.

The manele can be divided into “classical manele” and “modern manele”. The “classical manele” are a Turkish-derived genre performed by Romani musicians called lăutari in a lăutărească manner,^[1] while the “modern manele” are a mixture of Turkish, Greek, Arabic, Bulgarian and Serbian elements, generally using modern (electronic) instruments and beats.”

While the best definition is the Dracula definition: Manele is a type of pop folk music from the Balkan, mastered by Romani musicians. It is generally intense emotionally and a lot of Romanians either love it or hate it. Just look up Babasha being booed at a concert and you will understand. The themes of manele are: women, money and enemies.

Just to quote from the documentary below: “after a couple drinks you will want to listen to manele”. In Romania listening to manele is viewed as not being classy, as being vulgar in a way. Whether or not that is true, it is important to recognise that manele is the most listened genre in Romania. There can be a discussion on race and music but that is a more complicated discussion that Dracula is not prepared.

Similarities with other Balkan music genres

Quoting an article: “Manele shares many similarities with other music in the Balkans and Middle East – Chalga (Bulgaria), Turbofolk (Serbia), Skyládiko (Greece), Arabesque (Turkey), and Mizrachi (Israel) music. For instance, all of these styles of music have artists who cover each other’s songs. It is not uncommon to hear a Turkish or Greek song get covered by a manele artist.”

Romanian manele taking from another song:

Florin Salam – Saintropez

Bulgarian Chalga

Also Turkish Music:

Turkish version:

And the manele version (which I am not going to lie, I really like):

Even reggaeton didn’t escape the manele reinterpretation:

The original

The manele version:

For more information: https://www.romaniaexperience.com/romanian-manele-music-the-controversial-genre/

Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZfmxjl5Vo , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XenyCr8c1lY

Really interesting resource: https://manele-in-romania.ro/ch1.php

Another documentary about manele in the list bellow:

Best Documentaries about Romania (Part 1)