She won the first season of Showtime and was announced in February as Croatia’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. But last night Franka found herself at the centre of a scandal, as it emerged a song with the same instrumental track as her Eurovision entry “Crazy” was released online two weeks before Croatia Eurovision entry.
Now the Croatian chanteuse has responded in a post on her official Facebook page.
In the post, Franka clarifies that the songs both have the same producer and suggests “Crazy” is the original track.
Talking about the songs, she says the Romanian artist Guez used the “Crazy instrumental”, which would make his song a copy of hers. If that is the case, it would clear Franka to compete at Eurovision 2018 with “Crazy” in its current form.
She also suggests she and her team are looking forward to hearing “cool, new, “crazy” covers,” on the road to Portugal.
The song Crazy is the product of the work of Karpo media group, and alongside Branimir Mihaljevi?, the song was produced…
Posted by Franka on Saturday, March 31, 2018
There was intense speculation on social media last night as to whether Franka might face disqualification.
Although Eurovision rules are clear on what happens when songs have been performed before the official release date, they’re less clear on what happens when elements of songs, such as instrumental, have been used before Eurovision.
In a similar incident in this year’s Maltese national final, Aidan Cassar’s team were forced to revamp his song to ensure compliance with Eurovision rules. Since Franka’s team suggest her song came first, there shouldn’t need to be any changes to “Crazy”.
Some fans were concerned the “curse of 43” may have struck again. There have only been two occasions where 43 countries competed at the Eurovision Song Contest. In all other cases where 43 countries were announced, something untoward has happened, forcing one country to drop out, such as Russia’s withdrawal last year.
What do you think? Should team Croatia have to replace the song’s backing track? Share your thoughts below!
Plagiarism or not, the song is pretty messy and stands little if no chance to obtain any success. I also think it’s about time to get back to the old rule by which the song representing a country had to be wriiten by domestic authors. Anything else is pretty pontless to me.
1. That statement was made by her manager.
2. The producer apologized. The song was made for her. He also sells beats on the side, so he uploaded this one among those he sells by mistake. It should have never got there. He also didn’t have the permission of the other co-author.
Now it is high time the song got an uptemo remix.
Well, that HORRID song isn’t hers either, it’s the producer who sold it to different teams.
In the end I think the Romanian version is better, it’s sassy and irreverent, does more justice to this track. Although the guy is pretty obscure he had more views on Yt. That said I wish good luck to Crazy, no hard feelings!
You are so stupid that you like Romanian version better ? it literally sounds soo bad and cheap you have no taste in music what so ever.
https://www.eurovision.al/single-post/2018/03/30/Një-tjetër-shqiptar-në-Eurovision (translated by google) “Croatian public radio and television, HRT, announces that the name of the Croatian songwriter is not surprisingly the Albanian composer Marjan Deda. There has been a lot of speculation on fans of the Croatian song “Crazy” sung by Franka Bateli?, because its beginning resembles the song “Heart of you” by composer Marjan Deda, sung by Denisa Gjezo at the 56th festival. of the song in RTSH. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20iRTslR4hc Now HRT has decided that composer Marjan Deda will be present in Lisbon as part of the Croatian delegation to Eurovision. Marjan Deda, has a long career as a… Read more »
Nice April Fools joke
It is true, I also read the article. Also if you listen to Denisa Gjezo’s song, you’ll realise that the music at the beginning of the song is the same.
Can we all freaking agree that it was not Franka who made the statement but her manager??
It is always hilarious when people fight over who wrote a terrible song.
No.
Guys, READ this carefully.
Croatia planned to organise a national final, in the form of Dora. However, it was cancelled in the autumn, at Christmas behind close doors, HRT was asking for demos of songs that could represent Croatia in Lisbon. One of the demos was Franka with Crazy. The song was chosen to represent Croatia.
In January, Crazy was sent to London to be revamped, In February it was announced Franka would represent Croatia.
The producer of Crazy was dumb and released the backing track of Crazy to Guez and now we’re in this situation.
Yes, even one person from HRT said that they chose Franka because she was the only artist who had ready song for the Eurovision.
Sorry, one of the reasons why they chose her*
Franka told us in an interview that she wrote ‘Crazy’ after being selected by HRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZnwUr-umP0
In this video, at 11.02 you asked if HRT invited her before knowing the song, or vice-versa, and she said ‘I don’t know’. She is full of contradictions.
And imho, those producers who sell songs online, like vacuum cleaners, are not for esc.
my theory is that, if what allexo is saying is true, they had a deal to lie about when the song was written cause they didn’t want anyone to know that they planned Dora but it failed…i knew that there was something weird about her saying that hrt just called her in january and asked her if she has the song…they are lazy and irresponsible but that much
not* that much
What I can take from this whole mess is that countries should be encouraged to pick artists that can write and compose the whole thing by themselves. When you involve a producer on the creative process (producers of course are not villains, they’re important to help the artist shape the final result and figure out how to deliver it to the audiences), you’ll always risk having someone shady or lazy on the mix. If you can find a great singer that can’t write their own material or doesn’t have regular partners that can do that for them, just subvert the… Read more »
Seems like a whole lotta fuss over a song that has realistically no chance of qualifying from SF1. (I like the song but it isn’t high impact enough imo.)
Glad that Franka explained everything. Song is definitely not a plagiarism. Good luck Croatia in Portugal!
she is so full of herself to declare that romanian song it;s a cover.. are you kidding me? i dont know who stole from who but she must be more carefull with words
Agree. Neither of them did anything wrong, but calling the other guy’s song a “cover” when it clearly isn’t is arrogant and makes me lose sympathy for them.
Franka’s song is the original one. When you buy the track this comes up:
(if you don’t want to click, it says Franka’s name on the track.)
Denz Beats is an idiot who sold the melody later to Guez, but receipts are on Franka’s side. Case closed.
Bye Felicia Romania!
Guilty go check it for yourself. Buy the track and you’ll see. It ain’t photoshop.
Lmao you changed your email.
He didn’t change anything, it was like that from the beginning.
It’s now under that name but people can edit things and reupload tracks under a different name. The other guy showed receipts, the same track was under a different name before, and obviously they wouldn’t be selling “Franka-Crazy instrumental” before the song was released, or somebody would’ve leaked it to the general public, which no one did.
Disqualification!
If it’s true, that it’s the same producer, she would have known that they sold it to someone else and than she should have said something about it… what do you think?
Since the producer is owner of the instrumental, he can sell licence of instrumental for use to whom he wants.
you are a joke
this is what happena when you buy the sample
So the producer changed the name of the instrumental afterwards, big deal.
well it is a big deal because it pretty clear now that the instrumental was originally made for franka
Just because it’s now sold as Franka – Crazy doesn’t mean it was always the case. It was sold as The Weeknd Style etc. thing before, and the guy probably changed the title to Franka-Crazy afterwards or simply took down the instrumental and reuploaded under the new name. Doesn’t mean anything.
no, it was the other way around…producer just renamed franka files to the Weeknd Style Song or whatever and sold it like that but when you click on the file it says “franka” and its like that with every file…i didn’t post the picture just because i was bored you know, it has its purpose
I didn’t see any moves from the other side neither. If this guy has right to a song he should prove it on court, not on FB. 😉 This is just a good PR from his side and Franka doesn’t bother because it’s PR for her too.
You can claim anything about what happened before release date, but there are still papers, contract between singer and producer when purchasing the song. EBU doesn’t care as long it was after Sept 1st. Is just a producer who played everybody selling the song to all of them, but is not against EBU rules.
your logic is so wrong that it can’t be worse than this…she could have been finished with the song 10 years ago and release it today…the fact that she released it on a certain day doesn’t mean that they worked on the song until the very moment of the release…and the running comparison is so stupid that i won’t bother to explain why its wrong
Releasing a song on a certain date is purely related to PR strategy, not the date on which the song is finished. Sometimes a song can be finished for many months before the label releases it, because they want to put it out at the strategically best time (look towards some artists, Azealia Banks comes to mind, who had totally finished albums and songs, but their labels kept stalling the release because the artists weren’t generating enough buzz or something similar). So yes it IS logical that Crazy was finished weeks before it was actually uploaded to Youtube. Meanwhile the… Read more »
Ah good. No rules broken by Franka or her team. We’re all sorted out.
I for one really like the song. It’s also been nice having Croatia back so it’d suck if they dropped out again.
Bad attempt by the producer to drum up what he probably thought was potential publicity for himself, using the beat from Franka’s song for another project (and even if you took the producer’s side, it’s STILL an obviously BAD attempt for publicity and comes off that way) — If he really believed in the content and it’s potential, that’s fine, but I’ve never had Franka’s song even CLOSE to qualifying, so I think he’s set for disappointment in his attempt
Nah, Y’all miswrote the Ottoman Empire. 😎
You meant Belarus, there, I’ve fixed it for you!
Just because her’s was officially released after his came out, doesn’t mean that her song wasn’t made first.
Franka should be in ESC, but the producer is dirt and must be disgraced. I hope for an article about him, to see his face. That producer did what designers do, when two actresses show up wearing the exact same dress. The designer knew he gave that dress to both of them, but he kept silent, because is good for his business. Dirt. Immoral.
Agree. The only person I dislike in this issue is the producer alone. Doesn’t matter if they plan on making a PR out of it as he’s the root cause of all this anyway.
You spelled Belgium wrong
With the posted receipt we at least now know that Franka had the beat first. Denz sold it to the Romanian guy after working with Franka. No drama, no plagiarism.
The producer just wanted extra money.
“Franka has the beat first” assuming HRT is telling the truth. The meat of the matter is, the instrumental was up for sale to the public before Franka released Crazy, and Guez’s song was released before Franka’s. Who knows if there were more people using the same $80 instrumental before either of them, hopefully not before September 2017.
80$! That was the price! It’ s on Guez’ Fb. And it was for exclusivity, also!
They copied the song it is so obvious!
Since the song is forgettable anyhow it doesn’t really matter who covered who – it mustn’t make the final – that’s important!
it mustn’t make it into the final (correct English – I try my very best)
actually both things you said were correct! the first is more casual and the second is more exact, but both meant the the same thing 🙂
Thanks you very much – very much appreciated!
I’VE FIGURED IT OUT: Denz sold the instrumental to the Romanians – check guez’s personal Facebook he shared an image of the transaction where he bought the instrumental in early January ( left his email details in the pic, logged in and found the transaction with the instrumental download here): https://denzbeats.beatstars.com/b.user.data/_temp/downloads/blame-me-yt_1027425.mp3 called ‘the weeknd style beat blame me’ similar to the dai laga saga where the instrumental is open to purchase…
No problem then. No drama. End of story.
Music Producers have to make money somehow. This kind of thing is going to happen, whether Eurovision fans like it or not. The alternative is to make every Eurovision entry be composed using the Sobral’s method, or alternatively at a highly secretive songwriting camp.
He just confirmed with that receipt that Franka was the first one to get the beat and that it was written for her. Denz just sold his part after working with her. No plagiarism, no drama.
It proves Franka used the beat before him (assuming HRT is telling the truth), but not that it was written for her. For all we know there might be more “The Weekend Style Beat Blame Me” songs floating around before either of them.
Music producers have to make money somehow, but not that way with an Eurovision song. He should’ve charged more for an original instrumental with exclusive rights, not used something that he sells to bedroom producers for 80 dollars. Or maybe he did charge more and sold the instrumental behind HRT’s back.
80 $ ? For real?
omg guys Guez posted the resits on his fb page that he bought the song and concluded by “croatia gtfo of eurovision.”
The drama is bigger than we think.
He also shows a letter where he is buying exclusive rights of the song!
Honey, covers come AFTER the release of a song, NEVER before. Her answer seems very suspicious….
What a terrible answer. A cover of her song released weeks before her song? Okay then.
Then it is a very bad publicity stunt from Croatia, because many fans will not vote for Croatia now. I say… Croatia seems to become a non-qualifier.
Well Guez posted his receipts on Facebook regarding to this statement. Things are getting more interesting…
I still think that the guilty one is the person who gave the same song to two different artists. And while I understand why they claim that the Romanian song is a cover, I think they should rather focus on clearing the whole thing up or it’ll only harm their chances at Eurovision.
This is such a f*ckery by person within production team I JUST CAN’T
Denz must make coming out covered in ashes.
If it’s been exposed after march deadline then I’m double suspicious about whole situation.
Leave Franka alone, she has her dreams just like Ovidiu Anton in 2016. And the raper has publicity. Everybody wins.
Sometimes grammar isnt important when the message is clear, but in this case i think you should definitely add a ‘p’ in rapper, or people will misunderstand you
I prefer EDIT and LIKE buttons, instead of this REPLY that fills the page with long and narrow comments. Well, you added the ‘p’. Thank you!
lol
This seems kinda suspicious to me…. And I don’t really buy that Story, but Croatia won’t qualify with that song anyway, so who cares?
Of course she’s innocent together with the whole team minus the producer. The song was composed for her and then Denis just sold the production to the Romanian guy after working with Franka.
Croatia won’t be Dq. EBU loves a good rule-breaker.
Lol 😀
Romania should not want disqualification of Franka. First of all, I’m sure Franka herself is innocent (she only gave a bad answer when she said is just a cover).
Second, because Franka is surely innocent, she is now just like Ovidiu Anton in 2016.
I dont think romania wants her disqualification
I bet Romanian team doesn’t even know about this. Guez is an undergrown rapper.
This is a stupid reaction, Guess with Ceea ce iubim was published 2 weeks before Croatia is plublished there song Crazy, also its simple crazy is a cover. it’s exact the same song only the words ar different. I say disqualification of Craotia, or is it corruption?
If the Romanian has documents, it will be the curse of 43.
I mean, is not just a cover, if he paid money for the song and has documents.
Fight for the truth!
Skinny legend <3
I asked Branimir (writer of song) whose song came first, and he said it’s a cover, he’s still trying to figure out how the romanian guy got the instrumental, made a track and released it two days before the teaser 😛 and that there were a lot of people involved along the way- he solely made the track with denz (producer of *both* tracks)
Yes, thank goodness she isn’t gonna be DQ.
I’m also glad Franka’s not disqualified. 🙂