Nilüfer Yanya - Miss Universe

Nilüfer Yanya - Miss Universe indie pop, sophisti-pop 2019

When listening to it, we apparently immediately registered for the care program of WWAY HEALTH, a wellness center where Yanya has a job as a telephone operator in addition to her music career. In five rather satirical spoken word skits, she gazes at our western world that we must always feel good, that we so badly want the perfect life, and so on. "So God help me / It's unhealthy / To feel nothing / What am I supposed to feel?" She longs in "Sparkle GOD HELP ME". In the pop-punk tinted 'In Your Head', Yanya recommends that we think mainly for ourselves, a theme that we hear echoed a number of times throughout the album - such as in 'Tears', in which Yanya is provided with an over the years eighty worthy lo-fi synth pop beat.

However, it is the poetic lyrics in combination with the playful mixing of different genres that make this album effortlessly grab hold of the repeat button. "Baby Blu" seems to be a letter written to a lost love, she describes, accompanying her by dance pop-laden synths that end up in a cheerful gospel spectacle. In "Paradise", Yanya includes a number of soul influences in her story, while "Safety net" sounds like a melodramatic pop song due to the lingering 8-bit and the narcotic percussion in the background.

On "Miss Universe", Nilüfer Yanya turns out to be a master rather than a miss through the series of catchy reefs and the shaking percussion that the album contains. She also proves to be an experimental jack-of-all-trades, using her beautiful voice for a variety of genres, ranging from indie pop to R&B to even jazz.

8/10