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10 Reasons to Love Manele

Ha! Only joking! That surprised you, didn’t it? Of course I don’t love Manele. Short of having a quick lobotomy, there’s pretty much no chance of me ever professing my love for Manele. However, nor do I loathe the music in the way that many people do – in a way which drives people to paint anti-manele graffiti on the walls of Bucharest. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a new piece of stencil graffiti about town which reads just that: “Anti-Manele”. Graffiti like this is a signal of just how controversial this kind of music is in Romania . I mean, I hate Chris De Burgh, but you don’t see me writing “Lady in Red Sucks” on walls all over Bucharest . There’s something about Manele which raises peoples passions in a way that middle aged crooners like Chris de Burgh doesn’t. And there’s something sinister about it: something sinister about the way in which so many people believe that professing a powerful hatred of Manele makes them some kind of musical connoisseur. So, to even out the balance, I’ve put together a list of ten reasons: not ten reasons so love manele, but rather ten reasons why it shouldn’t be universally berated. I don’t expect you to agree with me, but here goes:

1. It’s no worse that 50 Cent, or 90% of the music that you hear on MTV. So what if Manele is all about “Bani, femei si putere”. So is most of the misogynistic, materialistic garbage that passes for mainstream Hip Hop these days. To my knowledge, I’ve never heard a Manele song that glorifies drug dealing, yet I can name ten Hip Hop tracks off the top of my head that brag about selling crack cocaine, the same drug that has torn apart entire communities of the poorest people in Britain and America.

2. Too many people who claim to hate manele really mean to say that they hate gypsies. Fact. Romanians find it hard to accept that this is still a very, very racist county. Perhaps no more racist than France or England , but at least in the west people have the decency to not express these views in public. Romania , by contrast, is a country where talking about “gassing the gypsies” or “sending them off to an island somewhere” is considered acceptable. It’s not.

3. Manele is might be kitsch, but this is a country full of kitsch. From Becali’s villa to your average Romanian nouveau-riches living room, Romania is a veritable temple to kitsch. Why single out manele as being worse than the rest of it? Greek music is about as kitsch as a pair of Elton John sunglasses, but I don’t see anybody making a fuss about it…

4. Manele music is great live. I’m not even kidding. I saw Adrian Minune (sorry, De Vito) in concert and was completely blown away by his performance. It was a bit like a prog-rock concert, with a huge live band and (get this) two drummers. Two drummers? In my book that’s the kind of thing you expect to see from a pretentiously avant-garde Jazz act. I call that exciting.

5. They do great cover versions. Have you heard the Manele version of 50 Cent’s ‘In Da Club’? Or the cover of O-Zone’s ‘Dragostea Din Tei’? In more ways than one, Manele resembles the Reggae and Dancehall scene in Jamaica . They make music on cheap electronic equipment, and steal other people’s beats in a way that is funny and musically interesting at the same time.

6. “22 million Romanians can’t be wrong!” Manele is unbeatably the most popular music in Romania. Get down off your High Art pedestal and join the rest of the human race. Cultural snobbery isn’t fun, it’s just boring. People always tell me they “don’t like Manele”, but are hard pressed to tell me what they do like. Attacking manele is often a way of looking like a connoisseur. It’s a way of disgusting the fact that you don’t know very much about music and your favourite artist is Chris De Burgh.

7. Making fun of manele is just another way of making fun of poor people. Ok, so Mafiots with large bellies might like it too; but let’s be completely honest. This is the music listened to by poor people, especially in the provinces. Making fun poor people is about as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel. It’s not funny. Stop it.

8. Erm.

9. Did I say ten reasons?

10. That’s it.

On a more serious note, I’m lucky, being a foreigner, a music journalist and a DJ, that I can write an article like this and not be universally laughed at. Imagine if a Romanian tried to write the same article. It simply wouldn’t get published. I don’t expect you to start going to Manele clubs: but we need to take a long, hard look at the real reasons why there is so much prejudice against what is, in fact, just music.