Nostalgia Sunday – Old Israeli songs

January 15, 2012 - 11:52 PM by

Last week was a busy one in the world of Israeli musical nostalgia. David Sela, a prolific online archivist and proprietor of the wonderful Nostal site, launched his latest labor of love: Radio Nostalgia an online music channel playing Israeli hits of yesteryear, 24/7.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, Sela stated that he and music editor Yoram Siman-Tov, had selected a library of about 4,500 Israeli oldies going back at least 25 years — 25 being the cut-off date (or is that the starting point?) for being considered an “oldie”. Each year, the station plans to add another year’s worth of old songs to the database.

Sela also said he was reviewing several proposals for radio broadcasts as well.

The Nostal website itself houses tens of thousands of images, some 1,000 videos, hundreds of audio clips, as well as scanned newspapers, magazines, posters, postcards, books, toys, trinkets and other ephemera. Sela stated that the site had visitors from 132 countries and estimated that 19 percent of users are Israelis living abroad.

Another great source of old Israeli songs is the YouTube channel called, not surprisingly, OldIsraeliSongs. It’s run by record company NMC United Entertaiment, which holds the rights to the old Hed Arzi music catalog.

The 90s may be less than 25 years away, though not by much, but enough time has elapsed to give music aficionados some historical perspective. Radio host and pop music historian Yoav Kutner has deemed that decade the most important in Israeli rock and produced a five-part series for Channel 8, The Albums, about five seminal works: Simanei Hulsha by Berry Sakharov, Plonter by Rami Fortis, Zman Sukar by Eifo Ha-Yeled, and the debut albums of Ziknei Tsfat and Eviatar Banai.

Following is a Ynet report on the series which features period clips as well as interviews from the launch party with Israeli rockers like Aviv Geffen (“We all lived on Sheinkin Street… there was a Sixties vibe in the air”), Gilad Segev (“I was most influenced recently by Berry Sakharov in working on my latest album”), Chemi Rudner (“Being unfashionable is the most fun”), and performances by Rudner and by a now-religious Eviatar Banai.

All agree that what happened at that time can’t be replicated — they cite commercial hype and the reality-TV-ization of the music industry, and that includes Geffen who is currently one of the judges on the Israeli version of The Voice.

But, as Rudner says, there’s still a place for artists who create for the love of it.


NOTE: If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to view.

Tags: • Category: Art, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Music, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture, Profiles, tv 

Comments

3 Comments on Nostalgia Sunday – Old Israeli songs

  1. Nostalgia Sunday – Kol Israel archive open to all | ISRAELITY on Sun, Feb 5th 2012 11:01 PM

    2. [...] the same is true. Only a few weeks ago, Israeli nostalgia repository Nostal.co.il launched an online radio station of old Israeli songs. Late last summer, we reported on Shapam’s collection of old radio ad spots. And now, the [...]

  2. Nostalgia Sunday – Nostalgia Online | ISRAELITY on Sat, Feb 11th 2012 6:45 PM

    3. [...] who only a few weeks ago, launched Radio Nostalgia, an online music channel playing Israeli hits from 25 years ago and beyond, has clearly tapped into [...]

  3. Andy on Sat, Mar 17th 2012 10:19 PM

    4. This is the best radio station I have ever heard no more trawling through youtube looking for great oldies. Every day I hear another great song from my youth. and the old Kol Israel snippets are great to remind people of how things were back then.
    Keep up the great work.

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap