The 411 - O-ZONE

O-Zone was a Romanian pop group made up of Dan Bălan,

Radu Sârbu, and Arsenie Todiraş (aka Arsenium). They were originally from Moldova. They mainly played eurodance music and were famous for the single "Dragostea din tei", a notable summer hit which reached Number 1 in the singles charts of many countries during 2003 and 2004, and Number 3 in the United Kingdom. The follow-up single "Despre tine" had similar success across Europe.

Compared to its multi-platinum status in Europe, O-Zone never entered the charts in the United States. With the advent of the Numa Numa Dance, "Dragostea Din Tei" had a boom of popularity in the United States, but was rarely played on the radio.

In 2005, the group split up. All of the members went their separate ways and started their own solo careers.

Arsenie Todiraş was a co-representative of Moldova during the 2006 Eurovision contest, competing under his new moniker Arsenium.

"Dragostea din tei"
The song "Dragostea din tei" was written and composed by Dan Bălan.

Los Angeles resident Dan Bălan was born in Chişinău, Republic of Moldova, 06.02.1979. His biggest success to date was with the pop band O-Zone. He was the front man of this project, producing and writing all of their compositions. Dan formed O-Zone in 1999 and released three albums through 2004. Their best-selling LP was DiscO-Zone, which reached #1 in six countries and sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide (1,000,000 in Japan alone).

Dan’s most successful song to date is "Dragostea din tei". The song reached #1 in 32 countries (and #3 in the U.K.), selling 12 million copies worldwide. It was the biggest single in Europe and Japan in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The song was eventually covered by over 100 artists worldwide in 12 different languages.

The "Numa Numa" video clip was a Newgrounds classic released in 2004.

The song was featured in a famous viral video on the Internet by Gary Brolsma. In this video, Gary lip syncs and dances to the pop tune. The video can be found throughout the Internet, and many spoofs and remakes have also been made.

*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

$25,000 Internet Video Winner

University of Arkansas freshman takes top prize in online contest.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Keith Eddy of Russellville had an unusually productive freshman year at the University of Arkansas. The computer science major earned a 4.0 grade point average for both semesters. He also spent about a month this winter making a video in his Yocum Hall dorm room for the online "New Numa Contest."

He won the contest, beating out more than 300 entries from around the world, and he's waiting to collect the $25,000 grand prize.

"The sponsor called me in May to tell me," Eddy said. "I couldn't breathe at first when he told me. I had thought I might be able to place in the top 3, but I wasn't expecting first place."

The New Numa Contest is part of a pop cultural phenomenon that is probably familiar to regular visitors to YouTube, but for everyone else, not so much. It started in late 2004 when Gary Brolsma sat in front of the webcam on his computer and lip-synched, with movement, to an obscure Romanian pop song. The "Numa Numa Dance" video made its way to the Internet where Brolsma joined "The Star Wars Kid" and "Angry German Kid" as unlikely Internet stars. By 2006 the video had collected a reported 14 million views, plus dozens of homage and parody videos. Brolsman returned in August 2006 with a "New Numa" video, a new song, an Internet sponsor, and a contest offering a total of $45,000 in prize money.

The contest rules were simple enough: take the "New Numa" song, create your own video, and post it to YouTube. Here is the winnining entry:


**O-Zone's Official Site.