Not many artists can say they have been compared to Ariana Grande and Ella Fitzgerald. The pop princess and jazz queen are known for having a vocal range as vast as the ocean, and a style that is so raw you feel their pain and joy as your own. Thus, Nikki Yanofsky’s comparison to these artists is not only an honor, but a high standard that she completely owns in her new EP Solid Gold.
In just 6 tracks, Solid Gold does not only capture pop hearts, but the essence of love’s hold on said hearts. Pop music and love are tied together with the virtue being the basic foundation to every song written in the genre. From crushes to relationships, from lust to like, and from heart-fulfilled to heart-broken, Yanofsky scopes every inch of love’s power with a voice that is effortless in its capacities because it is a force in its nature.
Like Grande and Fitzgerald, Yanofsky has a way of hitting a note that is not just musical but emotional, as well. She mixes Grande’s electric dance-pop swag with Fitzgerald’s fragility to give songs like, “Miss You When I’m Drunk” and “Young Love (Acoustic)”, the brokenness of love from its highest to its lowest. Though “Miss You When I’m Drunk” is danceable wth twinges of rock sensibility, it is its lyrics of alcohol induced longing that will have listeners’ relate/cringe at all the slightly drunk times that their hearts could not hold in its longing for the one it called “the one”. While “Young Love” has its “popified” version, it is the acoustic one that elevates Yanofsky’s voice with a piano-driven melody that gears a clear message; no matter what darkness is in this world, it never can overpower the light of young love. HALLELUJAH! Yanofsky has a way of making music that both tells the truth and makes you want to sway in rhythms.
Pop is often defined as bubblegum, while jazz if often defined as pure soul. In combining pop’s catchy hooks with jazz’s raw, lyrical openness, Yanofsky shows that the truth is something you can either move to or sit still and think. In her song “Me, Myself, & I”, she brings down pop’s natural bounce to a lower, smoother register so that listeners understand the,t at the end of the day, for good and bad, your spirit its the one thing you can rely on…. so choose to empower it! In “Best of Me”, she claims to have given her best to a friend, but, honestly, she gave it to listeners by creating a track that hails the 90’s era of R&B and gives elements of spiritual liveliness. Overall, the Wyclef Jean produced Solid Gold proves why Nikki Yanofsky has been acclaimed since childhood.
There is lot of pressure in being a music prodigy, but Yanofsky has shimmered through it. Signed to Verve Records by age 13, and the winner of multiple Juno Awards, this Canadian, soulful singer is a bonafide superstar. Click Here to buy Solid Gold or and to learn more about Nikki Yanofsky.
