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Inna is the fourth studio album recorded by Romanian singer Inna. It was released on 30 October 2015 by Warner Music, while a Japanese version of the record titled Body and the Sun was made available on 23 July 2015 by Roton and Empire Music. The singer collaborated with various producers on the album, including The Monsters and the Strangerz, Axident, Play & Win and Thomas Troelsen. Its material includes multiple genres, such as dance-pop, deep house, electro house, electropop and Latin.
The album's title was originally planned to be Latinna, and it also includes promotional singles intended for the cancelled extended play (EP) Summer Days. Inna and Body and the Sun were supported by several concert tours in Europe and Japan. Seven singles have also been released to aid the record, of which "Cola Song" (2014) was successful in Europe and was certified Platinum in Spain and "Diggy Down" (2014) marked Inna's third number one hit in Romania. Commercially, Inna only reached minor success on record charts, peaking at number 157 in Japan and at position 45 in Mexico.
[Inna is] about me and my fans, it's about the energy that we have together. It's so amazing when you see a lot of people singing your songs and dancing on your music, that you get so much inspired to go back in the studio and write about that.
Inna first hinted at the release of new music by uploading a preview of unreleased tracks on her YouTube channel on 18 October 2014; the video included samples of "Bamboreea", "Jungle", "We Wanna", "Rendez Vous", "Danse avec moi" and "Hola".[9] The album was originally scheduled to be named Latinna (stylized as LatINNA). In an interview with Direct Lyrics in April 2014, the singer said that title alluded at her "feel[ing] Latinna" (Latina) and her notable success in Spanish-speaking, Latin-origin territories.[10] The album was then changed to Inna as "[she wants] that and [she feels] that right now". The singer also stated that it is "a lot of [her] and [her] energy, and [she] felt it coming very natural", confessing that her favorite track on the album was "Fool Me".[8] The record includes "Take Me Higher", "Low", "Devil's Paradise", "Tell Me", "Body and the Sun" and "Summer Days", which were released as promotional singles in 2014[11][12] for the cancelled extended play (EP) Summer Days.[13] Inna recorded the album in one year in various cities, such as Barcelona, Ibiza, Los Angeles and Copenhagen.[8]
Inna was released worldwide on 30 October 2015 by Warner,[14] followed by its availability in Turkey on digitally and physical formats on 6 November 2015 and 29 April 2016, respectively, through Yeni Dnya Mzik.[15][16] A digital download and CD was also released to Mexico on 11 March and 25 March 2016, respectively, by Warner.[17][18] A Japanese edition of the record, titled Body and the Sun, was first released digitally worldwide on 23 July 2015 by Roton and Empire Music.[19] Subsequently, it was made available in Japan on both digital and CD formats by Warner Music on 31 July 2015 and 5 August 2015, respectively.[20][21] Pure Charts called the album's release process "chaotic".[13] In an interview, Inna said that she decided with her team to make a special Japanese version of the record since Japan was selected as the first country for the album's release. They looked at fans' reactions when putting together its tracklist.[22]
The record was aided by several concert tours in Europe and Japan.[23][24] It was also the singer's second visit in Japan after a gig in March 2013.[22] The album's first single, "Cola Song" (2014), featured Colombian reggaeton performer J Balvin[1] and was only included on Body and the Sun.[19] An electro house, electronic and Latin recording,[25][26] "Cola Song" included saxophone and horn in its composition.[27][28] Commercially, the track experienced success in Europe[29] and was certified Platinum by PROMUSICAE for selling over 40,000 copies in Spain.[30] The second single, "Good Time",[2] was similarly only featured on Body and the Sun, featuring the vocal collaboration of American rapper Pitbull.[19] It is a dance-pop track that uses trumpets and "hedonistic and cheerful" simple lyrics.[31] A SoundCloud Complete Edition of Inna released on 19 November 2020 would eventually also include "Cola Song" and "Good Time".[32]
"Diggy Down" (2014) was released as the third single for the album,[3] sampling a portion of Marian Hill's "Got It" (2015).[23][24] Musically, it is an R&B-influenced dance-pop love track.[33][34][35] The recording reached number one on Romania's Airplay 100,[36] marking the singer's third number one song in the country after "Hot" (2008) and "Amazing" (2009).[37][38] It also won Best Dance at the 2015 Media Music Awards.[39] After "We Wanna" with Alexandra Stan and Daddy Yankee featured only on certain editions of Inna,[4] "Bop Bop" followed in 2015 as the fifth release.[5] It is a dance-pop song featuring American singer Eric Turner,[40][41][42] and reached number two in Romania.[43] The record's last singles, "Yalla" (2015) and "Rendez Vous" (2016),[6][7] were both moderately successful in Inna's native country.[44][45] "Yalla" is a dance-pop track sung in English and partially in Arabic language,[13][46] while "Rendez Vous" samples Mr. President's 1996 recording "Coco Jamboo".[23][24] "Take Me Higher" is a deep house and pop song,[47][48] with "Low" being a chillout track about the singer's intimate moments with her suitor that showcases her vocal abilities.[49][50] Another track from the cancelled Summer Days EP, "Devil's Paradise", is a ballad with synth-pop beats and electronic influences talking about her "ultimate pleasure with her new man",[51][52] while "Body and the Sun" is a deep house and electropop song, written about Inna missing her man's body.[53][54]
The record experienced minor commercial success on record charts. In Japan, the Body and the Sun version reached number 157 on the Oricon chart on 17 August 2015, where it spent two weeks.[57] It marked the singer's lowest-selling album in the country, having sold about 760 copies in Japan as of August 2015.[58] Inna further peaked at position 45 on Mexico's AMPROFON chart on the week ending 24 March 2016.[59]
The subversive fantasy recasts the tale of Faust's bargain with the devil under the lens of censorship. The text so profoundly marked the Ukrainian-born pianist that it serves as the touchstone of her latest album, Manuscripts Don't Burn, which features world premiere recordings by five composers.
"There is something very romantic about the idea that I was a dissident even then carrying this book with me," Faliks told NPR's Michel Martin as she recounted her family's journey to Vienna and Rome before landing in Chicago. "It's got vampires and flying witches and usually like boring and kind of useful idiot administrators that are getting punished by these forces of nature. And I just found all of that to be completely fascinating and engrossing."
Faliks at times strums the piano strings wildly "as if I were a cat with claws" in "Manuscripts Don't Burn" by recent Curtis Institute of Music graduate Maya Miro Johnson. "And that actually invokes the sound of fire, maybe crackling in the fireplace. So that's the manuscript's burning," she said.
The pianist also whispers, hums and recites a passage of the text from Margarita's changing perspective during the devil's masquerade. There are echoes of dance hall music and bells from Giotto's Campanile (bell tower) in Florence.
Veronika Krausas took an almost opposite approach for her elegant and restrained "Master and Margarita Suite for Speaking Pianist." Before each movement, Faliks recites a short quote she picked with the composer.
The album's title comes from a scene where Satan, disguised as one Professor Woland, grants Margarita a wish as thanks for serving as queen of his ball. She asks for the return of her lover, The Master, who wrote a novel (about Pontius Pilate) rejected by Soviet bureaucrats in 1930s Moscow under Stalin. Woland asks to see the novel when he finally meets The Master, who says he burned it. Woland then holds up the book and says "Manuscripts don't burn."
In turn, the new works draw a thread between the different elements of Faliks' own multifaceted biography. Here's how she sums it up in her memoir published last year: "I knew I was a musician long before I knew I was Jewish, Ukrainian or Soviet."
Composer Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin found "a way to get Inna back to Ukraine, musically" in his Voices suite. In one movement, an arpeggiated piano line accompanies a 1908 recording of Ukrainian cantor Gershon Sirota, who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising under Nazi occupation.
Mike Garson's "Psalm to Odesa," amplified here by the pianist's own improvisations based on a traditional fisherman song, also marks a musical return to Ukraine. "I wanted to speak to Odesa and remember the city of my childhood. As the destruction and war in Ukraine continues, I continue to dream to return to the city of my birth," Faliks says.
Romanian singer Inna has released nine studio albums, three compilations, 62 singles (including 15 as featured artist) and 51 promotional singles. Her YouTube channel surpassed three billion total views as of May 2019.[1] 24 of her singles have reached the top ten in Romania, with "Hot", "Amazing", "Diggy Down", "Bebe", "Up" and "Tare" topping the country's singles chart in 2008, 2009, 2015, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. With global album sales of four million copies from her first three studio albums, Inna is the best-selling Romanian artist.[2][3]
Roton distributed the singer's third studio album, Party Never Ends, in March 2013. The record spawned "Tu şi eu", the Romanian-language version of "Crazy Sexy Wild", which peaked at number five in Romania. "More than Friends", a collaboration with American reggaeton performer Daddy Yankee, reached number seven in Spain and was certified Gold for video streams of four million.[5] In 2015, Inna released her eponymous fourth studio album and its Japanese counterpart, Body and the Sun. The first single off the Japanese release, "Cola Song", features Colombian reggaeton singer J Balvin as a guest vocalist. The track was a commercial success in Europe, and was certified Platinum in Spain. "Diggy Down", the first single from Inna, scored the singer's third number one single in her native country, while the follow-up "Bop Bop" reached number two.
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