Static (Liraz Russo) at a listening event for his first solo album, "Liraz", to which journalists were invited, February 19, 2023 (Walla! Culture)
Let's put the gossip aside for a moment: Static's debut album as a solo artist is a really interesting moment.
A lot is at stake.
Even if it seems from time to time that he is mainly a television personality, Statik is first of all the most influential pop artist in Israel in the last decade, one of the main contributors to the rise of the new Israeli pop and the musical hero of countless children.
The dissolution of his partnership with Ben El Tabori into a duo that is a brand of enormous size raises many questions, and above all: what kind of static does it look like now?
More of the same or with a new, more mature identity?
What is more, a pop singer or a rapper?
And also: Is it better for him alone, and is he even able to succeed without a dominant singer by his side?
These questions receive a partial answer in the album "Liraz", as the real first name of the musician, if only because Statik decides not to decide.
With a foot here and a foot there, a wink forward and a wink back, this album mainly tries to preserve the familiar and comfortable, and remains standing still.
This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself: a normal day of static in the studio is still more original and polished than most days of most pop artists in Israel.
But for those who aspire to be at the forefront, the ordinary is never enough.
Worse: the usual is boring.
It's not that there isn't talent there - the opposite is true.
"Liraz" is a fun album overall, by a studio wizard with lots of tricks and tricks, whose homework is a bit too easy for him and he doesn't really feel like learning anything new.
Take for example "Rondalim", a cute piece with a good rhythm, with a Ferrari-level arrangement - with the sound of cars that is elegantly and strikingly attached - and a text at the level of used junk, that is, nothing about nothing.
In the end it's a filler.
There are too many songs like this on the album, too many weak lines ("If you're a star, then why aren't you in my sky", from "A hit of one song") and casual melodies ("Balenciaga"), and not a few beautiful moments that are wasted between all of these.
The album includes 12 songs in total, most of them in the region of two and a half minutes - Zabang and we're done.
But the whole is less than the sum of all the parts.
In the beginning, when Static and Ben Al just broke into our lives, they had a quality that excited even people who don't listen to pop - a truly extraordinary versatility, jumping between musical spaces from song to song, which guaranteed a surprise with almost every new single.
But the chameleon is dying: this is far from being the case with "Liraz" - an album in which almost every track may be strong on its own, but it is not broad-minded or fresh, but one that is built on familiar formulas, and even if each and every track works on its own - the whole is quite pale .
How many of these songs will we not forget by next week?
too little.
More in Walla!
"Parting with Ben El crushed me. It was important for me to convey my pain in the new album"
To the full article
There are still a few: "Liraz", the opening theme song, which is exactly the example of the expected direction in which the album should have gone - a cutting, conscious rap that plays with the sterile television image and crumbles the make-up and Instagram filters, and is summed up in a spiky chorus.
This is the almost unique moment in the album where you feel boldness or a step towards something new;
The closing and intimate "Dance", which is also the turning point of "Liraz" - the anthem that, because it is personal, is actually an anthem that almost everyone can identify with, with a chorus that settles in the mind;
And maybe also the poppy, bitter and smiling "ball in the middle", which manages to maximize the use of the secret spice that static has in abundance: bursting energy.
There are three guest appearances on the album, "The Perfect Crime" with Eden Ben Zaken, "Tarantula" with Agam Bohbot and "Wash the Eyes".
Each of them has its brilliance - Ben Zaken is a serial show stealer, who improves every song she's in - but none of them are really exciting, not enough to want to hear again.
If anything, the songs remind us of something else: even without excelling, they illustrate how much easier it is for Static, a rather limited singer in the end, with a more skilled vocalist with him.
The low point of the album, by the way, is "On the Rasi", orientalist and infantile nonsense, which sounds as if Static swallowed Spita with a particularly stupid and cheap production.
No less than seven people, some of them respected people in the industry and the same seven who signed almost all the songs on the album, also signed this sad joke.
None of them stopped for a moment in the studio to think about it one more time?
A question arises from this: do we simply expect too much from static?
Did his pioneering and initial success raise the bar to an unreasonable height?
The answer to that is simply no: Static has honestly earned, over and over and over again, the status of an original pop artist with a thousand sparkles up his sleeve.
This is not just PR.
The price of success is not only nightmares, but also a burdensome burden of expectations.
It is indeed a debut album - but Static is no longer a young artist, but an experienced musician, in the fourth decade of his life, who has performed in front of crowds, starred on television and judged others there.
At this stage, he was expected not to fight at the top of the table, but to qualify for the Champions League.
In the face of all these things, "Liraz" settles for kindness: it's a lovable album, full of lovable songs, by a lovable singer - and that's it.
Precisely because it was not achieved with zero effort, his class potential was much higher.
We will get answers to the big questions, if at all, maybe in the next episode.
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