Why do Israeli singers sing in English?

Two or three years ago there was a heated debate on the issue of the Israeli singers who sing in English. People asked questions like: Why are they doing this? Is it legitimate? What is it doing to Israeli music?

Some people sweepingly negated the phenomenon and argued that it was damaging not just Israeli music but the singers themselves. The supporters (or the closest thing there was to supporters) cited a wealth of weighty reasons of their own. They said the singers needed to do what feels right for them and that English is the lingua franca of the pop business. They even said the objections to singing in English were connected to one of the ills of Israeli music: the emphasis on lyrics over what is really important - the music.

Nonetheless, even those who saw nothing wrong with singing in English (like this writer) had to admit that between 2005 and 2007 there was a somewhat ridiculous rise in the number of singers who sang in English, especially in the realm of Israeli indie. Singing in Hebrew was considered almost a statement.

Since then, things have sorted themselves out on their own and there has been a welcome normalization. More and more singers are focusing on lyrics (Rona Kenan is the outstanding example; Ruth Dolores Weiss is another excellent example), while musicians for whom the text is just icing on the cake have stayed with English. Does anyone really care what language is sung by groups that are musically brilliant, like Izabo and Eatliz.

Something else that has happened has been the surprising success of Habanot Nechama and the astounding success of Asaf Avidan. Habanot Nechama has veered back and forth between English and Hebrew, but the fact that the English-emoting Avidan went gold shattered the convention that an Israeli musician who sings in English cannot succeed at home. Yes he can, big time.

Was this success on the part of Avidan, who self released his album, connected to the decision by the NMC record label to sign up Tamar Eisenman, who sings in English, and issue her new album, "Gymnasium?" Could be.

Whatever the case, it was an excellent decision. Eisenman's album is one of the best, freshest, and most exciting things to have happened to Israeli music recently.

And on the assumption that there are still people who insist on waging the language debate, this album is an absolutely convincing argument that there really is no need.

There is something so natural, free, effortless and unfussy in Eisenman's use of English that it seems to say: Hebrew, English - it's all the same, the only question is how you do it. Eisenman does it almost perfectly.

Stop and go rhythm

The first time I heard "Hit Me," Eisenman's first single, I thought it was the excellent New York group The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The resemblance (a slight one) does not derive from some desire of Eisenman's to sound like someone else. Rather she is very good at playing a mix of rock and roll and groove.

One of Eisenman's best features is that she has a profound understanding of black music. This is not a matter of a superficial and hapless desire to sound like a rhythm and blues singer, as is the wont of certain female Israeli vocalists, but rather from a natural rhythm characterized by a very sharp cut of the beat and a dynamic of stop-go-stop.

Eisenman's songs gather momentum and then suddenly stop, and then take off again, and then stop once more. This structure affords an interesting dimension of breaking and truncation, which Eisenman balances well by means of good melodies, appealing and emotional singing and texts that are charged with energy (the opening line of the album: "I'm dreaming fast on a highway to a new start," in English of course) captures the spirit that bursts forth.

Apart from two tracks toward the end of the album, in which Eisenman seems to be trying to force herself to be a rocker, there is not a dull moment in "Gymnasium" and in it there is the right balance between fast and rhythmic songs and slow and rhythmic ballads (everything Eisenman does is rhythmic one way or another).

Each and every ballad is excellent: the opening "New Touch," "On My Way," and "Regret," with the participation of Avi Lebovich's Orchestra, a kind of concerto for big band, singer and electric guitar without effects.

Walking in English

Gilad Kahana, the big mouth and the brilliant mind of Girafot, also sings in English on the self titled album with his new band, The Walking Man. Why? One can think of several reasons. First of all, The Walking Man is a side project, where things are sometimes done differently, with good reason. Secondly, the contents of some of the songs in the album, those that are about relations between elderly Israelis and their Filipina caregivers or about the wannabe cosmopolitanism of Tel Aviv, justify the choice of English.

And there is something else. This sounds paradoxical, but my feeling as I listened to the album was that Kahana chose to write in English precisely because he wanted to speak simply and clearly.

In Kahana's writing there is always ambiguity and a degree of alienation. This is his Hebrew style. In the songs on "The Walking Man" album, the policy of ambiguity is enforced less strictly, the writing is more direct and it is easier to understand what Kahana wants, even though he is not speaking Hebrew.

When a Hebrew-speaker listens to a song in English, even if he knows the language well, some sort of effort is needed. With Kahana, it requires no work. Not only does he use quite basic vocabulary, his grammar is also completely transparent and even "Israeli" to some extent. This did not grate on my ear.

There are no cases of automatic and laughable translation but there is a clear local gene in the DNA of the lyrics in English (and also in Kahana's singing, which sounds Israeli in a way that isn't embarrassing) and this creates a surprising intimacy with some of the songs.

Up until the middle of the album, it is a pleasure to watch The Walking Man stroll down the streets of Tel Aviv.

In the music, too, as in the lyrics, there are no unnecessary complications, the arrangements are airy and move easily (even if they are not particularly impressive) and in five at least of the first seven songs there is a humming and very enjoyable pop sound.

The seventh song alone, the brilliant "Money Man," justifies the whole album.

And then, all at once, "The Walking Man" stops moving. Clear warning sirens are heard at the start of the eighth song, "Dancing," along with especially discouraging and irrelevant trumpets, a guitar riff in the style of Keith Richards and a lyrics that say, even if tongue-in-cheek, "Look at me!."

The next songs do not manage to have appropriate tunes and suddenly Kahana's Israeli English loses the charm it had. The Walking Man can't sustain an entire album.

At a performance last week, Kahana hit on (without harassing) one of the girls in the audience and said that he had seen her checking her boyfriend's text messages. He asked about 80 times, "Why are you looking at his messages?"

But he was wrong. She wasn't checking her boyfriend's messages. She was texting Kahana himself. She wrote: "Gilad, make me an EP."