Alexandra Stan: Saxobeats

Alexandra Stan is the sort of young upstart pop diva that it’s hard to hate, yet hard to take seriously. She’s a Romanian 22-year-old singing on top of twinkly synths and techno beats that happened to luck into a ridiculously catchy saxophone loop and turned it into an international hit. You’ve probably heard it. It’s called “Mr. Saxobeat”. Capitalizing on the success of that single is the predictably titled Saxobeats, a strange title given that only around half of the eight original tracks here have any hint of saxophone. These are pure dance pop songs, for better or for worse. It’s most interesting on “Ting-Ting” when producer Marcel Prodan incorporates hints of Balkan folk music into the mix; It’s least interesting when Prodan and Stan recruit a mediocre rapper named Carlprit for a song called “1,000,000” and Stan is relegated to singing a hook of “milly-milly-on, milly-milly-on, milly-milly-milly-milly-milly-on” over and over. Pre-“Saxobeat” single “Lollipop” is here as well, though its generic production and crude lyrics will have you wishing that it had been conveniently forgotten about. Five remixes round out the album, but none of them have much more to say than the originals. Mostly, this is solid(ly generic) DJ fodder that won’t get you kicked out of the club. It’s fun enough.