Not only did music lovers get their annual summary at Spotify this month, so did musicians. Aya Zehavi Feiglin’s songs, for example, were streamed 1.2 million times in 2021. Nice numbers, probably for those who are still caught on the seam line between indie and off-mainstream. More than half of the plays came from two covers, very beautiful by the way, that she did for Madonna’s Plant Protection Waltz and Madonna’s La Isla Bonita.
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Aya Zehavi Feiglin
(Photo: Michaela Lahat)
In an interview with Ynet, she explains why she is not ashamed that her covers are so successful, and does not think they come at the expense of the songs she writes. “It might have sucked me ten years ago, but today I look at things differently,” she says. “When I do a cover of La Isla Bonita, it’s like a song I recorded and brought a certain interpretation and angle to, and Einav Jackson Cohen created a magical atmosphere there. “That the cover is easier to catch the ear than an original song, certainly when the original work is perceived as more alternative. The covers I make are a window through which I am exposed to my music, and I am happy about that.”
And what’s going on with you on mainstream radio? Are you satisfied? Is this still an important tool for music distribution, which also reflects what is happening on the ground?
“There are all kinds of pitches we play on and I want to be successful in all of them. It’s clear today that digital is more dominant, but I’m not just aiming for that. I hear more music on the radio than streaming. “This is part of the game I have to play for the moment to come and someone to buy a ticket for a show or hear the album, and I need a foothold on all platforms. But I’m never happy, I’m not happy.”
Unlike in the past, musicians today are in constant contact with the field and must also understand the marketing-economic aspects of their music. How are you with this?
“Every era has its pros and cons. It’s true that the masters are ours and no one will steal our rights and songs anymore, but my mission in the world is to write songs and make people happy through my sadness or cynicism, and not be my content maker or brand manager. Sometime During my career I dropped the token and realized that if I wanted a career in music – and it did not matter how talented or incompetent I was and how many songs or albums I recorded – I also had to work on something not related to music at all, like putting on a show or campaigning for an album. Great, I’m the captain of this ship.The power is with me and comes with it a headache and discretion.There is always such an internal struggle and I eat a movie that my songs are bad, and during this time I have to decide as project manager – whether to open a show now at Barbie (January 18 “She’s going to perform there, A.S.), while the creative and artist Kaya can get up in the morning and say I’m not good or successful and that it’s less suitable for me now.”
It seems that the decision to release the new song “Up Down” was made by the two spellings – the creator and the director – together. “I had a kind of writing barrier before the previous album (‘My life is too short and terribly long,’) I did all sorts of manipulations and pulled myself by the hairs to get out of it,” she says. Feiglin knows that crisis may come back. “I do not have any formula that I tell myself that if I sit down then a song will come out. It could be that because of the fear that songs will not come out then sometimes more are written, but there is always a feeling that it is not enough.
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Aya Zehavi Feiglin
(Photo: Michael Topiol)
“Producing an album is a crazy job, but it’s the most fun job in the world,” she says of the upcoming album she recorded with Gili Meir (the guitarist of all my studs, the band she led at the beginning of her career, AS). – Probably in this profession of music and culture, and I asked myself then how legitimate he is in the world. It connected me to the world of music and music and from there the songs came. The corona made me reconnect with myself and find the reason why and who I am. From this innocent and pure place Gili and I met and worked on the album. We walked around the ghost town and then went home Songs during this period. ”
As in the new song, “Up Down,” Zahavi Feiglin is in both places. “I’m constantly trying to find the middle ground and understand that it’s okay too. My life is a kind of dealing with another wave and another wave, and I understand that sometimes the wave will wash me away and sometimes the water will be calm.”
The new song is acoustic and minimalist, after a poppy and electronic album, where do you feel better?
“The new album has a very uniform color compared to the previous album where every song is done with someone else. It is very based on the guitar and it is very played. Its front is basically my start in music, even before I was a singer, and somehow in the Corona period I went back to my first loves “To the music I grew up with like David Broza, Shlomo Artzi, Meir Banai and Korin Elal, and also to the kitsch of the eighties like Sting and to Madonna’s things. You can not run away from who you are.”
Your writing is very exposed, and also a bit cynical – isn’t it scary to pour out your heart like that?
“It’s not scary because it’s what I do, courage is in other things altogether. I need courage to swallow a pill, not to write a song. Writing helps me live, cope with life and treat my pains and wounds, and I am thankful for the privilege I have been given that thing too. “Reaching other people, touching and helping them. It’s the fuel that gives me strength to keep going.”
Zehavi Feiglin is very fond of collaborating with others. This year she participated in, among other things, “I want to be with you tonight” by Lahmala and sang with Shai Nahisi in “You would come to me”. “I really like people. I like working with people and I’m good with people,” she explains. “I constantly want to push my boundaries, innovate, learn and be inspired, and there is no better way than to collaborate with someone else. I love being surrounded by friends. It’s a profession you do together even when you’re the lead singer. Every person I work with develops and challenges me. As a creator, this is another friend that entered my heart and the circles of the work.
And by the way friends, how did you feel when Ravid Plotnik sang your “hero”?
“In hip hop it is very common for one to sing about the other, and it was the most fun and bitter in the world. I knew it was going to happen and I even came to them in the studio and at the end of the song I also scream something there in small. I really like Ravid and we like to chat about music, songs and The profession, he praises me and I adore him. “
More collaborations, which she is not currently revealing, are expected soon, but not a unification of all the studs with me. “Three years ago we did a reunion show at Barbie, and I guess we’ll do something else sometime because we’re good friends who like to play together, but at the moment I’m not interested in being in a band, even though I work with people and not some solo guy digging in his studio.”
With that band, Zehavi Feiglin also did a short tour in “A Star Is Born”, and left with quite a few insights into the world of musical reality. “The situation you get into there in the heart of prime time is very extreme. It’s not just the crazy exposure, but the work within a production that has very commercial ratings considerations and everything there has to be top. But the question is how do you get into it and what do you want from it? It can be a wonderful thing and it can also be a destructive thing. ”
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Aya Zehavi Feiglin
(Photo: Yasu Tsel)
“I came there with my band after we had an album, and after quite a bit of deliberation. I was at the beginning of my journey and reality is not tagged with the way I go and the musical character I wanted to be. After much digging and head eating, I said to myself why not? I have a product to promote – an album And band – and I have a crazy platform to expose them. I went through the steps to get to the team, and it was clear to me that I was not suitable for the sequel, and I got exactly what I wanted from there. “This struggle between the commercial need and the place of freedom and artistic expression. There is no right or wrong in that, it is always a mix.”
Were you going to be a judge there? Maybe there is a lack of a character who will represent the huge female wave that has been operating here in recent years, which does not receive enough recognition from the mainstream?
“I do see that there is more movement in this direction. But on TV and in the mainstream the considerations are driven by ratings, and these platforms reflect something that is happening in reality. I can get upset about it, but instead I work on my territory and do what I can to grow and grow. Mine to give the genre in which I act (Golden Feiglin gets annoyed with a smile when I call them “Pomegranate Bunch 2”).
In the end, she says, it’s an egg and a chicken. “If my and my colleagues’ music has a crazy demand, those who sit in these places will give it a place. It happens slowly but I think it happens. The field also wants – and in all areas – to hear and see more women. To be a correlation between things, and to sit in the heart of prime time I need to have a reflection of the degree of power I currently hold.I have 500 followers on Instagram and not 500 hundred thousand, and I need to represent my voice.It can be changed by active moves and give us more power And representation, but in the end, after setting aside the socio-political debate that I do not know if it can really be cleared up, what I am producing at the moment X people like and may be what it is supposed to be. It’s not a gender or political issue, it’s my glass ceiling And suddenly things will change and tomorrow it will be the widest thing that can happen, I do not know. “
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