We have to go to the bottom of the chart to greet the Romanian stars of tomorrow. At #73, Romanian deep house act Cassette enters thanks to airplay in North Macedonia and Italy for their song My Way (Time/B1/Sony), which extrapolates elements of the 1978 Gloria Gaynor disco hit I Will Survive (Polydor). Singer of the new version, which sounds nostalgic and still contemporary, is the 16 year old chanteuse Olivia Alexandru.
The other new Romanian entry is at #74 by pop singer Olivia Addams, due to success in Poland for her singles Stranger and Dumb (both Global & Creator). Her music sounds very International, because her career was always international minded. She studied in Germany, was signed with her band Jealous Friend to international dance label Ultra Records, and featured as singer on the 2018 single Not A Goodby by Alex Parker & Peter Kingsma on Sony Sweden.
Especially the Romanian-Polish connection from Olivia Addams is a special one in this chart. Mostly border breaking success is either pushed by major labels on a pan-European level or goes via language dominated clusters. Take for instance this month’s top 3: Spanish dance producer HVME at #1 is on major label Sony, German pop singer Zoe Wees at #2 and Irish dance producer Shane Codd at #3 are both signed to global player Universal. And examples for language clusters are German pop singer Mathea at #6 whose German language songs are loved in the German speaking countries, while the Dutch dance pop of Goldband at #9 is only understood in the northern part of Belgium, as they sing in Dutch.
Speaking of Belgium, the highest new entry this month comes from Belgian rapper Frenetik at #10. The next big thing on the Brussels rap scene kickstarted his career from street cred to mainstream via a powerplay on big French radio station Radio France with his track Je Sais (“I know”) on Sony.
The other two new entries this month are dance producers, who have found hit success with collaborations, and now try to make it on their own. First up at #22 is Mannheim born producer Jonasu. He had a big hit together with Dutch dance producer Sam Feldt on Post Malone (Spinnin’). The German producer studied music in Amsterdam and now his own track Black Magic (3Beat) is crossing over to Belgium, Finland, Latvia, Ireland and the UK.
And at #66, Swedish dance producer A7S enters thanks to his own song Nirvana (Warner), now popular in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia and Scandinavia. Alexander Tidebrink, as his real name is, was the missing link in the chart success for German producer Topic, known for his hit Breaking Me and his remake of ATB’s Your Love (9PM), both on Universal. So now A75 may celebrate his entry with Skāl! (“Cheers!”) or even the Romanian word “Noroc!”…
