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The reason I assumed MOS DEF must have died is that I can't see any other way for him to get reincarnated into a skinny white chick in Jerusalem... I was just surprised by the transition from her predominantly folks-y-ish-esque English material to... umm... This?! Excellent music; Catchy as hell, impeccably arranged, intensely fun to listen... but above all the real shocker was in what can only be described as the "Bling Quotient." You simply must appreciate the juxtaposition; on the one hand was a diminutive Jewish woman, dressed like all those former hippies who at one point or another adopted a more refined sense of style but still liked to keep their appearance "real" by strategically accessorizing and adding a few unexpected flashes of color, whereas on the other hand... blasting was a Semitic version of Mary J. Blige's & Gwen Stefani's lesbian love-child - as remixed by DJ Shadow using Bran Van 3000 samples. Weird shit, I tell ya... This album isn't just catchy, it is also excellent music by any definition. This is not the work of a white girl pretending to be ghetto; The music is inspired, the lyrics mellifluous and meaningful and the production is almost perfect. I hate sounding like a raving sycophant, but I can't find the words to describe how much I liked what I heard... For obvious reasons she won't let me keep a copy - she even had the audacity to tell me that I can buy it once it's released. ( Capitalist whore. I thought we were friends?!) But until then, dearest readers - since I'm one of only a select few to have heard it - you'll have to take my inebriated hearsay evidence as gospel on this one... (Oren Goldschmidt - Shakin' that ass... 03/2008) |
| "Honestly, Hadara is just like Joplin. She may come from Jerusalem but her music is steeped in the western tradition. Sitting at her piano, songs flow effortlessly from her finger tips with a bohemian, bluesy rock style that can be compared to Joni Mitchel and Janis Joplin. Everything about Hadara is genuine and honest. Her revealing lyrics give her music an intimate quality, like having a private conversation in a secluded local."
(Sunday Mail UK 04/11/2002) |
| "She blends her Israelis roots with a wealth of American influences, from Bob Dylan (to whom she pays homage in several songs) to Barry White... She confesses that she prefers to ad-lib while singing, giving her songs a rough, unpolished edge. She has a bluesy, husky voice - at odds with her girlish good looks - as she alternates barely-audible whispers with despairing wails."
(Jewish Telegraph 20/2/04 Glasgow) |
| "She's brutally honest, a crazy combination of Tom Waits and Jonni Mitchel with a Janis Joplin edge"
(Tony Paris, x-editor of Creative Loafing, US, May 2000) |
| "Daringly, with a heart-piercing voice, sharp lyrics, and a gut-shot, superb performance, no one, I'm repeating, no one in Israel sings anything like Hadara. The comparison to Carol King, Jonni Mitchel, or Randy Newman is now left behind, for Hadara has established her own individual voice, fresh, sweeping, more accessible than ever, telling her little stories of a big city. Hadara is a living proof that good art prevails all, that a real talent will lead you surly into the hall of fame."
(Ha'ir, Israel, 31/01/02) |
| "Hadara is loaded with rare sort of honesty, sweeping emotion and magnetizing charisma. She knows how to touch all the right places with precision, grabbing the self-conscious neo chick-chic feminism by its very heart. Her sexy, be-spelling manipulations justify the appraise she receives."
(Kol Ha'ir, Israel, 15/02/02) |
| "Highway of emotion, she's the most real thing around... an ultimate artist... without boundaries, rules or inhibitions"
(Ynet Music, Israel, March 2001) |
| "We're talking real wonder here... intimate and revealing lyrics... a real bomb of emotions. Half a ticket price of Ricky Lee Jones, and way higher an emotional potency"
(Ma'ariv, Israel, 2001) |
| "The rebel girl... HLA is the closest thing here to a real rock-n'-roll girl, in the Joplin-Mitchel-Sixties sense of the word. She's got a hippish sort of sex appeal and a voice that ranges from whispering through sexual fondling to a scream. She doesn't recall her own provocative lyrics by heart. She sings and writes about sex, relationships and quirky love... A kind of Feminism mixed with Chauvinism; girl power mixed with a tremendous need for love"
(Yedioth Acharonoth, Israel, weekend magazine 5/10/2001) |
| "A mixture of Bert Anderson and David Bowie, Hadara's songs document a long movie of complexes relationships. Free of any rules and inhibitions and guilt, she deals with her human frailties with grand honesty. Must see in live concerts"
(Mooma.co.il, Israel) |