When a nation goes to war and everyone enlists, the moment comes when the children are separated from the men and sent home. "Iron Swords" is the event in Israeli music where artists split into two worlds: those who feel part of reality and those who try to avoid it and create a detached bubble for themselves, with the help of social networks and the young audience, who are looking to escape from the harsh world of adults.
You can think and say what you want about artists like Eyal Golan, Keren Pels, Lior Narkis, Hanan Ben Ari, Kobi Peretz, Avihu Panhasov and Usher Cohen, but the fact is that the war is present in their daily existence, in their music, in their new hits, in their performances. They embrace Israeliness, Jewish identity, togetherness, the soldiers, the families. In contrast, there are artists who have contributed in the last six months with performances and beyond, but when it comes to music, they choose escapism. So in the new albums of Omer Adam and Eden Ben Zaken, so in the new album and the second solo of Statik, "Liharim", which may be intended to make happy, but in practice mainly glorifies its creator.
Static, Liraz Russo, is the superhero of local pop, by far the most brilliant pop mind that has grown here in the last decade. A rapper and creator who in ten years managed to become the biggest star in the country, break up the duo and return to a second career. A kind of genius in his field, who is responsible for light and fun hits that should have already disappeared from the scene, but mainly thanks to his sharpness, and his ability to mobilize those around him to the heights of excellence, are still attached to all of us and are already producing the next generation of the audience. Anyone who hasn't heard kindergarteners sing "Todo Boom", a hit that swept the country but later became a hit, may think the song is hackneyed. And beyond that, Static is an artist who most of the time knew how to manage himself and choose the right choices to move forward, an industry of hits and success in one man, One Man Gang.
But Statik - perhaps in his youth he was stung by some spider that Zvika Pik inherited to Aviv Gefen and from him to Doron Medley - forgot the Spider-Man cliché: with great power comes great responsibility. And this Static album, "Liharim", is not another local pop album, it is a huge message to all the boys and girls who dream of becoming the next Ness and Stila. He tells them, leave you with this talk of the parents about spaces and abductees. We came to enjoy life, dance, bang our heads, have sex, forget all our troubles. And those who refer to "Liharim" as his first solo, "Liraz", forget that some kind of war broke out between the two of them here, in a small way.
Is the role of a pop star like Static to dress up as a rocker and sing something related to current affairs? Or just the opposite, to give his fans the perfect escape from her? An interesting question in pop philosophy. It seems that in this case, what happened to the country is so great, and Static's status in it as a significant artist is so senior, that it was appropriate to expect something from him that is beyond tears and beautiful words in "The Next Star". The idea of keeping his new album sterile from the hell outside, indicates that Liraz Russo is a cat that mainly licks itself.
He chose to open the album, the theme song "Liharim", with lines that are a masterpiece of disconnection: "I tell myself congratulations without shame, a hundred thousand tons of hard work, I haven't gone on vacation in two years." If he was a politician, he would already have demonstrations under the house. And it continues with "I've always remained a man, no matter what they say, two cars on the road, the whole country we've already seen, no one believes, until everyone believes, I'm not going to wait until everyone says we were wrong." True, in hip hop rappers are busy glorifying themselves, but how busy can you be thinking that the sun is shining on you when everyone around you is dead, physically or mentally.
There aren't many rappers who are also singers. Mookie is both, Tuna is both. Static is an excellent rapper, one of the best here, but he's not really a singer. In order to sing without faking, he needs most of the time to use Auto-Tune, a software whose function is to correct singers' fakes and makes their voice almost robotic. So it's true that he's not the only one and there are rappers who use Auto-Tune as often as he changes outfits, but in Ben-El, and when he's not singing a duet with a male or female singer, Statik also takes on the role of the singer in several songs here, and it doesn't sound good , to the point of being unpleasant to the ear. Filled in a line here or there with auto-tune, but hearing this robot throughout almost an entire album, like for example in "Monaco", is exhausting. If you're not a singer, don't sing.
"Leharim" is not a bad album, but it is too similar to its predecessor and lacks the brilliance that makes you stop. The theme song is a potential club hit, which tries to replicate the success of "Rondalim", but does not rise to it. In "Mother" Liraz settles a personal reckoning with the mother who gave birth to him, in a text that is composed of rage and sarcasm along with desperate longing, but the song suffers from mixing the kitsch of Shabbat candles with excessive aggressiveness, and it is not clear how someone who has not yet come is for him the queen of motherhood. "Monaco" is a futile song, except for a pinch in the heart for Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball fans. "Flashes" indicates the fatigue of the material in writing, "because my heart is sick, when your nose rises, tanned like crème brûlée"? Is this what seven writers who worked together on this album managed to rhyme?
The situation improves in "Kitzi", successful R&B about passion, which you will hear from cars on the way to entertainment this Thursday. But then comes "Fire and Water" which combines two of the album's problems, the singing with the auto-tune that sounds silly, along with bling bling arrogance and an admiration for money that should probably impress someone: "You have no idea what a Bentley is... you don't distinguish between the Jutzi From Zara to Fendi... what we have Babe is like winning a Maybach." He felt himself buying.
One of the best songs on the album is the duet with Eden Hasson "Oi Vaboi", in addition to the successful combination of Static as a tight-fisted rapper, to Hason, who brings the atmosphere of "We started" and the Mizrachi clapping, the phrase "Oi Vaboi", which alone consists of the cool chorus with ten repetitions of it, Appears here with the opposite super-Israeli meaning, which characterizes expressions like "it's a shame about the time". flashing. Another good song is "Penguin in the Desert", which sounds like Static was looking for influences in Mashina's "Night Train to Cairo" and Ethnix's "Katurna Masala". At the beginning of the song, finally, he sings well without the auto-tune, and the best line on the album appears here: "There is no lack of money here, but no one pays for mistakes."
"Tour de France" with Stéphane grinds his teeth at the limits of political correctness and disguises rude expressions using French slang and car imagery ("You have a nice trunk"), but the song doesn't really rise. One could expect more from a meeting between the two. In "Princip" with Ness and Stila, there is a strange duality between the violent text ("You want a pie in the face", "A kid who poops throws a chair") that will move children all over the country, and the word "Princip", which is considered ancient even in the eyes of their parents. "Witch" with Adi Beatty and the nod to Lambda is a cute piece, which tries to reproduce the formula of "Tarantula" with Agam Bohbut from the previous album.
The most beautiful song on the album is the last one, "Crystal Shards", the groovy samba with Odia. Within an apparent Latin romance of moon, harbor and booze, Static hid painful truths. It's a song about falling in love between two people who were scarred in their childhood. Static sings: "My mother left and left no memory, except for a mental problem that has no solution, thirsty for love I drink to get drunk, pain is an advantage." Odia answers him: "How would I wait for her to come back from work", and Statik adds: "I waited 30 years and voila no one came". And from the crystal ball of shattered life only crystal shards remained.
Most of the songs in "Leharim" are short, so that they fit Tik Tok. The longest between them lasted 2:52 minutes. Some are cut off in the middle of a word. Because at the age of 33, after a decade of career, Static is locked in the golden cage of the young crowd and social networks. He tries to give them here what he thinks they are looking for - a lot of ego, a lot of pan, a lot of dancing, a little sex, a little violence, a little feeling for the mother, a little scars, a little romance. He played it safe, recruited hot stars - Eden Hasson, Odia, Ness and Stila, Stefan and Adi Beatty - and probably gave his best. For anyone else it would be considered a reasonable album or better, but Statik is the superhero of local pop, in his terms it's half power.