Several years ago I was being interviewed on a radio show about Weekly Music Commentary. The interviewer asked me if I am contacted by any of the artists that I eventually decide to feature. I answered that I indeed am contacted from time to time, usually by public relations representatives on behalf of their clients. Rarely does the artist personally contact me. However, there are exceptions. This week I chose to feature one of those artists. Over two and a half years ago, a young recording artist contacted me about her release and music video. I viewed both and quickly understood the music and visual presentation was like nothing else I had ever seen or heard. This week Weekly Music Commentary returns to feature the young artist once again. Our featured artist this week is Flaviyake.
For those of you reading who are not familiar with Flaviyake, or if you missed the first WMC post, please click on this link and read the first feature. You will find what I found out before deciding to feature her. The music she creates is truly like nothing else I’ve heard today. The real difference comes from the music videos. Flaviyake relishes the opportunity to use video to bring the total artistic experience to her audience. Why did I choose to feature Flaviyake for the second time this week? There is a simple answer.
On June 8, 2017, Flaviyake released her début album, Bad In Bed. If you are somewhat familiar with Flaviyake’s music, you of course realize her songs tell an interesting tale. The entire album Bad In Bed certainly continues her formula for songwriting. She gave me an understanding of what the album is all about in an earlier email message. She said “Last year I read some articles saying that a woman should not be saying some things about her feelings to a man in a text message or personally because it may scare him. And I thought why not? Men are shy too and sometimes need a woman to make the first step. Hence my album concept – the freedom of women’s feelings expression.”
Interestingly, as I prepared for this post, I did not listen to the album until all other preparations were completed. This is unusual because normally the music is what drives the commentary. However, this time was different because I am familiar with Flaviyake’s music. Nevertheless, I did finally get the chance to listen to the entire album.
Bad In Bed is a very good album. I expected most of the songs to have cleverly constructed lyrics. Of course I was not disappointed. The album is a very good listening piece – from beginning to end. Credit must be given to Flaviyake’s overall musicianship. In the previous post, Flaviyake spoke about her music training. Flaviyake started her musical career by studying the flute and piano at the Sergey Rachmaninov School of Music in Chișinău at the age of six and she wrote her first song for vocal and piano at the age of ten.
While listening to the album, like most of her music previously recorded, there is no doubt the abundance of talent displayed by Flaviyake. Of course, much of her musical abilities were developed quite early in her life. Flaviyake was definitely a child prodigy and her life events led her to the musician she is today.
In her early teenage years, Flaviyake’s parents rarely allowed her to go out in the evenings and she increasingly spent time on the internet in Gay chat rooms. Separate to this, Flaviyake’s writing talent was developing rapidly and her Russian language teacher at school saw great potential in her essays and poetry. The combination of these two factors resulted in Flaviyake starting to write erotic stories at the age of 17 and self-publishing them on the internet.
She later moved to Moscow, taking on a variety of assignments – such as writing articles for magazines and newspapers, working as a photomodel and appearing in different TV shows.
As I mentioned before, Bad In Bed is an exceptional concept album that begs to be heard in entirety in one sitting. That’s exactly what I did several times. From top to bottom Bad In Bed has songs that could be used in film, TV, commercials and more. Nevertheless, the music should last for our ears for years to come.
I noticed that right away the album had the perfect first song in “So Hard to Say”. It set the tone brilliantly for the music that followed. Toward the middle of the album Bad In Bed settled into a wonderful album to play for your listening enjoyment. I could picture myself just sitting with friends at a casual dinner party and someone asking about the music playing that they are enjoying so much. “It’s like nothing else I’ve heard today”. True! Those songs “Alive”, “The World In Blur”, Living Without The Mirror”, and “Love Is Blind” really define Bad In Bed. For me, I hear Flaviyake further developing into the singer/songwriter that she want’s to become. That’s a very good place for her and us – the listening audience. It’s like Flaviyake right on time gives us the electronic driven “I’m Not Getting Older”, right before the end of the album. Just like her lyric continues, “I’m getting better”. Yes she is!
The only thing left to say about Bad In Bed is go get it. Stream it or download, just make sure you listen to it. Bad In Bed is a great album delivered by Flaviyake like no one else could provide. I’m already looking forward to my next opportunity to feature her. Flaviyake writes and sings songs like nothing else I have ever heard.