 Ofra Haza has everything to be
one of the major International artists. And yet, she is not. So, why? Her biggest
problem is her musical orientation and also the fact that, unfortunately, it seems that
all her artistic capabilities have been dimmed by her greed for money. Ofra Haza's family
was very poor and she swore to make a lot of money. The problem is the richer she got and
the poorer her records became (at least that's my opinion). In 1983, after representing
Israel at the Eurovision with the great song "Hi!" (Live!),
Ofra Haza was a huge star in Israel, if no the most popular artist there at the time! Her
following albums were fantastic too. Then, in 1986, she decided to change directions and
wrote herself a very rock album, "Yamim Nishbarim" (Broken Days). Till
then, she had sung only pop, ballads, standards and light rock. Now, she wanted to be more
"Rock". Well, from a musical standpoint, this "Broken Days"
is far from being her best achievement. Her voice is the only worthy thing in this album!
That is when her career in Israel started fading, especially since 1986 was the year of Rita's first album. And when you compare Rita's album to Ofra's "Broken
Days", you draw the conclusion yourself... Ofra did not seem to care,
especially since Europe was very interested in her Yemenite recording. So, in 1987, after
a third volume of Hebrew standards (which was not even as good as it should have been),
Ofra Haza released the European "Shaday", a mix of Oriental-Yemenite-
Dance-Pop album which was a huge success throughout the world. The problem is that her
following albums were exactly alike...and boring! What I think is that Ofra is a wonderful
performer but a poor writer-composer. Also, this style of mixing Yemenite-English and Pop
became old! Finally, what was to happen happened and her albums stopped selling. In 1994,
she sang the main theme of "La Reine Margot" (Queen Margot),
and I must admit that her rendition was awsome! So, if she can sing wonderful songs
like that, why is she wasting her talent recording crap? Also, at the same time, Ofra
released her first Hebrew album in seven years, "Col Haneshama"
(All my Soul) which I liked. She trusted other composers and writers, and did not do
everything herself. Unfortunately, the album did not get a warm welcome. This year, Ofra
Haza released a new album...in English...Guess the style...Guess the quality...No
comments!!! Anyway, the good thing is that you can appreciate the "old" Ofra
Haza, her huge talent, her golden voice and the fantastic songs in a few CDs!!! And
the only thing that we can hope is that Ofra goes back to recording quality albums (in
Hebrew since it is when she is at her best!). PS: I only display the Hebrew albums that
are available on CD. So far, two other great albums are missing: "Hi"
(Live!) and "Bayit Ham" (Hot House). |
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