Yael Naim: Yael Naim : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

What's with the popularity of naifs? Are we pining for lost innocence? There's the Juno soundtrack, topping the charts via Kimya Dawson's grown-up playground confidences, and Feist singing "1234" on the Grammys like a glammy Sesame Street guest. The latest faux little girl is twenty-nine-year-old Yael Naim, a Tel Aviv-bred, Paris-based songbird whose single "New Soul" — like "1234" before it — became a hit thanks to exposure as the soundtrack on an omnipresent Apple ad. Her second CD, released last year in France and now issued here, is more of the same spare, arty folk pop: acoustic guitars, parlor-room piano, school-band brass and romper-room percussion, with a bit of Mellotron and other electronic frosting. Interestingly, many of the songs are sung in Hebrew, and the way Naim purrs any word with a hard "ch" will make your loins tingle. But the high point is a stripped-down, slow-motion, kinda-brilliant cover of Britney's "Toxic" that reads, in light of recent headlines, like a sad love note to a wayward childhood friend. All in all, pleasant stuff — perfect for snuggling up with your motek and a couple of falafel.