SONG OF THE DAY

“New Soul” by Yael Naïm (Yael Naïm, Tôt ou tard Records, France, and Atlantic Records, USA, 2007). Written by Yael Naïm.

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

– She is a Franco-Israeli singer-songwriter of Tunisian Jewish parents.

– She rose to fame in 2008 in the US after her hit single “New Soul” was used by Apple in an advertising campaign for its MacBook Air.

– The song was also featured on the soundtrack of the movie The House Bunny.

– The success of this song made her the first Israeli solo artist to have a top ten hit in the United States.

– The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

– She served in the Israel Defense Force as a soloist in the Israel Air Force Orchestra.

– She began her singing career with a part in the musical Les Dix Commandements.

– Her first solo album, In a Man’s Womb (recorded in Los Angeles with Kamil Rustam), was released in 2001.

– She also sang the song “You Disappear” by Bruno Coulais for the film Harrison’s Flowers.

– In her early work she was credited simply as Yaël. She also performed a duet with Din Din Aviv titled “Mashmauyot”.

– Naïm joined with percussionist David Donatien, and over a period of two years they arranged and recorded thirteen of Naïm’s songs in a studio in Naïm’s apartment in Paris, and these were released as her second album, Yael Naïm, on 22 October 2007, on the Tôt ou tard label.

– The songs are in French, English, and Hebrew and received critical acclaim.

– The album entered the French album chart at #11 the week after its release.

– Her style has been described as having a touch of folk and a touch of jazz, with mysterious and evocative words sung with a delicate and intentionally husky voice.

– The video shows Naim moving into an empty apartment. She covers the walls in wallpaper depicting a lake surrounded by forest. She then begins unpacking several other things, including furniture, a piano, a goldfish in a bowl and a number of photographs of people, which she hangs on the wall. As she hangs the photographs, the people in the pictures are shown in real life, in the setting depicted in the pictures. Naim then begins painting on the photographs, and whatever she paints appears with the people in real life. She removes one of the pictures to discover a hole in the wall, revealing the actual forest setting shown in the wallpaper. She pushes on the wall, and it falls away into the lake. The remaining walls fall onto the water leaving the floor of the apartment like a raft floating on the lake, together with her furniture. The people from her pictures reach her by boat. They climb onto the makeshift raft with her, as they all celebrate, dancing and playing instruments, whilst she empties the goldfish bowl into the lake.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Here’s the video, as described above!