Does fate actually mean good or bad for you when your own music is selected by large corporations to accompany global advertising campaigns? Yael Naim, a Frenchwoman with Israeli roots, could answer this question. In 2008, her childish/playful song “New Soul” was used by Apple to promote the new Macbook Air. I could hum it to you, but unfortunately that doesn’t work here. You know him!
Of course, something like this brings money into the coffers, but it can also ensure that you are associated with this one track over and over again (see Feist) and that an artistic development that was once considered comes to nothing. Naim was born in France to Tunisian-Jewish parents and initially sang mainly in musicals until she made her breakthrough in her home country with her second album.
Unfortunately, the will to get going was weakening
Three more records followed and now, SOLAIRE, the current one and also the first after the attacks on October 7, 2023, which affected Naim so badly that she had to seek therapeutic help. There is something touching about your music. Calm, floating sounds, often simply created on the keyboard, are complemented by poetic lyrics and gentle singing, which unfortunately always spills over into the soppy.
Except for the rhythmic “Multicolor,” in which she metaphorically praises the various ways of life in the Arab world, the twelve tracks move along the same track, which can be described as well-worn and cushioned. Or just, if you’re evil, boring. Sensitive woman at the piano breathes her emotions into us. The deal from 17 years ago may have created space for relaxation, but unfortunately, it seems to me that the will to get going immediately also weakened.
This review appears in Musikexpress 2/2026.
