Friday, June 13, 2014

Nikki Yanofsky: A young vocal powerhouse



Nikki Yanofsky, only 20, has already made some amazing connections and references from the music industry like Tony Bennet and Quincy Jones who was the executive producer on her latest album, Little Secret. A girl who was nicknamed a new Amy Winehouse by the French Rollingstone, definitely bears a certain resemblance to the late soul jazz icon, although more swingy, joyful, and although being on her own ground at the much higher register. Probably, they were referring to You mean the world to me, one of the best songs on the album. The first single, Something New, a Quincy Jones tribute, is screaming retro,sun, fun and happiness, and may exude too much happiness at moments. Waiting on the sun, a silky summer tune, brings so many positive reactions, even though it may come across as a bit loungy at moments, it still makes you feel good to the bone and makes your day.  Also, one more song that stands out from the Blue Cantrell, Jazmine Sullivan pseudo-aggressive themes or swingy finger snapping girl dance party themes, is definitely Out of Nowhere, non-forcibly retro tune, where her voice gets to its best.

She is young, radiating, and vocally unstoppable, but is it enough to make an impact the size of Amy or Duffy, I doubt so.


So, what’s lacking? Everything is there, in fact, there’s too much of it. And that’s a problem. We somehow don’t succeed to find Nikki Yanofsky within all this production boost, and even within her own self, her voice is so good, but it’s just that, really good. Nothing wrong with it. And today that’s just not working. Everybody knows it, you have to be average or know and understand average to be great. So this amazing girl came across as a teacher’s pet who can scat like nobody else on this planet, while she was only listening to her older mentors, hoping to achieve immediate success, and hence, got the’cute stamp’ and nothing more than that for now.



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