"Stereo Love" is a song recorded by Romanian DJ Edward Maya with Moldovan-Romanian musician Vika Jigulina, released as their debut single in 2009 from Maya's album, The Stereo Love Show. The refrain is sampled from "Bayatılar", a song composed by Azerbaijani musician Eldar Mansurov. It became a worldwide hit in nightclubs and rose to the top of eleven national music charts and was certified eight-times Platinum in Norway, seven-times Platinum in Sweden, and Gold or higher in ten additional countries.
The song and the music video were both included on the compilation NRJ Music Awards 2010. The music video was filmed in Mykonos, Greece, as Maya stated in an interview that Greece "was a place that I fell in love with". The song won the Top Dance Song Award at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards.
Composition
"Stereo Love" is set in common time with a moderate tempo of 127 beats per minute. It is set in the key of C minor with a simple chord progression of Cm–A–E–Gm. The song is most notable for featuring a riff played with a concertina by Maya.
Lyrically, the song speaks of a passionate love between two people that is now dying, and their struggle to rekindle that flame.
Copyright controversy
In the autumn of 2009, during his stay in Greece, Azerbaijani composer Eldar Mansurov heard the song "Stereo Love" and contacted the Romanian Police, claiming the melody in the chorus was taken from his popular 1989 composition "Bayatılar". In the music video, the composer of "Stereo Love" was only listed as anonymous. The office confirmed with Edward Maya that he had in fact copied Mansurov's work. He admitted to have been fascinated by an accordion version of "Bayatılar" which he had come across online in early 2009 and claimed to have tried to contact the author but had been unable to due to his busy schedule. On 19 January 2010, Edward Maya signed an agreement with Eldar Mansurov in Baku, Azerbaijan, confirming their co-authorship of "Stereo Love".
The keyboard riff of this song was also used as a theme to "Zalim", a ubiquitous song written by the Turkish singer and songwriter Sezen Aksu, first recorded and released in 1995 by her former bassist and backing vocalist Levent Yüksel which was a hit that year, and then in 1996 by Sezen Aksu herself.
Chart performance
On the issue date 17 October 2009, the song debuted at number 12 on the French Digital Singles Chart. It became number one on 22 November 2009, with more than 6,142 copies sold. It reached its highest-weekly sales on 3 January 2010 with 9,763 sales. The song remained at number one for a total of eight-consecutive weeks. On the issue date 22 November 2009, "Stereo Love" debuted at number 2 on the French Physical Singles Chart and became number one on 27 December 2009. In Belgium, the single entered at number 40 on 28 November 2009 and reached a peak of number 2 eleven weeks later. In the Netherlands, it was ranked for two weeks atop, eleven weeks in the top 10 and 17 weeks in the top 40. In Switzerland, the single debuted at number 3 and peaked at number 2. It began at the number-one spot in the French-speaking part of Switzerland (Romandy), where it stayed 5 weeks. In the UK, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 4. In Ireland, the first week of release, the unofficial DJ Team version proved to be more popular (number 8 on the IRMA chart) than Edward Maya's (number 17); however, on 21 May 2010 the former dropped three places to number 11 while the latter jumped eleven positions to number 6 just before reaching a week later the top of the chart where it has been for four-consecutive weeks.
Outside of Europe, "Stereo Love" also enjoyed success in the Middle East, US, and Canada. It debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number 93 on the week ending 23 October 2010 and peaked at number 16. In 2011, it peaked at number 11 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart.