Last update - 00:00 21/08/2007
Keeping her twist
By Ben Shalev
Last year, we chose Marina Maximillian Blumin as one of Israeli music's five most promising singers. This was even before the auditions for the reality show "A Star is Born 5," and the few people who recognized her name were mainly jazz fans. It was crystal clear, however, that even though she gained acclaim in this marginal field, she had the presence of a star. When she performed with jazz ensembles, she had to try to leave some attention for the other musicians.
When Blumin mounted the "A Star is Born 5" stage, her background was in Schubert and Billy Holliday. Even so, by the time she auditioned, she already had begun flirting with the world of pop. She told Haaretz in an interview last year that she was writing and arranging some "regular" songs with Yehuda Eder, who is known for producing mainstream albums, and that they had no set goal.
She also had been working closely with another prominent producer, and it was probably he who advised her to accept the offer from "A Star is Born." Still, "regular" songs are a new and exciting field for her. Not that she did not like pop as a teenager - she was simply unaware it existed.
"When I hear a song with verses and a chorus, I think, 'Wow, what an interesting concept,' and when the chorus is repeated, to me it sounds really avant garde," Blumin said in the interview a year ago.
Perhaps this is the main thing that differentiates her from the other contestants, even more so than her classical-Russian background. Boaz Mauda and Chen Aharoni have been performing the songs they sing on the show since childhood. They do it better and more fluidly (at least Mauda does), but in principle, not much has changed.
Blumin, on the other hand, is doing something completely new. She brought her classical and jazz background into a world whose rules she does not yet fully understand, so she has no choice but to make up rules for herself. Perhaps this is the reason her renditions sound so fresh, even when they are not so good. In that same interview, Blumin was asked whether she feared that working with Eder would pull her into the mainstream and swallow her up.
"After the easy-listening songs, the songs will have a different angle," she responded. "I cannot and do not want to lie. If they don't have a twist, they're not Marina."
After spent several months in the "A Star is Born," mill, one can safely say that the twist is still there. Whether she wins really does not matter.