"Oah" is a song by

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singer–songwriter

Alexander Rybak Alexander Igorevich Rybak (russian: Александр Игоревич Рыбак) or Alyaxandr Iharavich Rybak ( be, Аляксандр Ігаравіч Рыбак; born 13 May 1986) is a Belarusian-Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pian ...

. It is the first single released from his second album '' No Boundaries''. It was released on 8 June 2010.

Background

Rybak wrote the song as an ode to one of his female backing singers, called Moa, as he wrote an ode to each of his three backing singers on his second album ''No Boundaries''. Rybak started dating her in early 2010. The two broke off shortly after the release of the song. In 2014, Rybak stated that he did not regret the song, but would not do such a thing again necessarily.

Critical reception

"Oah" was met with mostly unfavourable reviews in Norway. ''

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'' gave it a 1 on the

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, stating it did "(...) not surprise, have the exotic x-factor or, under any circumstances, be funny. It is just a hopeless, clumsy and plump affair that does not communicate in any direction.". VG also gave the song 1 on the dice.

Music video

In 2010, A music video was made for the single. It was directed by Lars Kristian Flemmen, produced by Eirik Heldal and shot by Martin J. Edelsteen. At the start of the music video Alexander asks a girl named Moa to go out with him. However, Moa tells him that she does not want to go out with him and walks away from him, She goes to her locker opens it and teddy bears fall on her with a note attached saying "So, lets start by being friends". She throws it away and goes to class, where Alexander sits beside her and starts singing to her again. For the remainder of the video, he closely follows her in a daily activities, while declaring her his love. The music video has accustomed over 19 million views per July 2020 on YouTube, making it Rybak's third most popular music video after "Kotik" and "Europe's Skies".

Track listing

Personnel

Lead

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Recording and production staff *Sergio Raminez - Editor *Eirik Heldal - Producer Costumes *Jeanette Hoff Art department *Patrik Svaningen *Ann-Kristin Olson Make-up *Katharina Sørensen *Tormod Hauge Source:

Release history

Other versions

Rybak also recorded and released a Russian version of this song called "Strela Amura" (russian: Стрела Амура, ''Cupid's arrow'') with lyrics by Anna Nikolaichuk. A music video was shot by Oleksandr Filatovych in Kyiv and released in June 2012 by both Rybak's own music channel and

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. By July 2020, the music video had reached to over 10 million views. In 2014, Norwegian musician

Øivind Elgenes Øivind Elgenes alias "Elg" (born 13 February 1958 in Kristiansund, Norway) is a Norwegian vocalist, guitarist and composer, known from a series of recordings and as front figure of the Norwegian band Dance with a Stranger. Career Elgenes was ...

made a cover of the song as part of Alexander Rybak's day on the musical programme ''Hver gang vi møtes''.

References

{{Authority control 2010 singles Alexander Rybak songs 2010 songs EMI Records singles Songs written by Alexander Rybak