INTERVIEW: Netta on her new single 'Wonderful & Great ' and her debut album: "It seems like it's getting darker all over the world, and I hope that the light will win."

Interview: Jett Tattersall

When it comes to releasing your debut song, Israel’s Netta (full name Netta Barzilai) certainly didn’t do it quietly. Her very first single ‘Toy’ was seen by a reported 186 million people worldwide as she swept to victory in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. ‘Toy’ became a hit across the world and to date has close to 110 million Spotify streams.

Since triumphing at Eurovision, Netta has released two EPs and a string of singles, most recently ‘Turn Up The Heat’, a techno-dance collaboration with producer Offer Nissim, and ‘Wonderful & Great’. A quirky, pop song with doses of reggae and a vocal from Netta where she is noticeably full of joy, it is an anthem of friendship and spreading love.

“I wrote a love song to that girl who has everything going for her in the most perfect and annoying way,” Netta says. “I thought about how we rarely compliment free of charge, and wanted to promote this positive exchange of energy between people, and in myself. Turning envy into admiration. This song is inspired by a chant that me and my besties do when we're walking out of the club at 4 am together after a great night out.”

Netta has also announced that her debut album will be released in January 2024. Alongside ‘Wonderful & Great’, the album will also feature ‘Everything’, co-written with Zara Larsson. Released as a single in June it is a glorious disco-pop track that shimmers with life and joy, despite its lyrics detailing the breakdown of a relationship. “You could've been my everything…no, you had to go and fuck up everything.”

One of pop’s most innovative, warm and delightful artists, Netta is a true pop chameleon who is as convincing with a disco track as she is with a left of field experimental song. Her debut album is shaping up to be the best kind of treat to kick of your 2024 in music, and we recently caught up with Netta to chat all about her music.

Hi Netta, it is so lovely to chat with you again. I was going ask you if you're well, but I'm seeing in your face that you must be!
I am! Right now trying to catch my breath after my tour. There were so many countries and there's so many more to go, and I'm really trying to take it all in. I’m very grateful but also I'm a big perfectionist, I want everything to go well, so I try to make that a positive instead of a negative in the way that I think.

You scream positivity, visually and sonically and I think being exhausted and overwhelmed, that's not necessarily a negative. There's only so much explosion of joy you can have without having a cup of tea and a sit down!
Before I got to be a little bit successful in what I'm doing, the volume was a mediocre volume. If I was bummed out it was because I got, I don't know, a bad email from the bank, or if I was very happy it was because I had a good jam with people on a Monday, and some people asked who I was. Right now I’m very sad if they cancel my flight and I can't perform somewhere, or I'm devastated if I'm reading 50 comments and all of them are bad. But I'm so happy if I'm having a sold out show and everybody's crying at the right moments, and everybody's screaming at the right moment. The volumes are so high of bad things and good things that you have to always work on perspective, and how to take things in a healthy way.

Tell me though, I got glimpses, I got snippets online of people's videos that they took, but tell me some of your highlights from the European leg of your world tour.
Those shows were magic. Every city that we got to, to see the line outside the venue is my favourite thing. Because when I get to see it, I get to see all the people, who is in the crowd, who my fans are. And it's always surprising, but also soothing, because it looks a ball pit! A very happy bunch of people, every one of them very different but so inviting, and so happy and non-judgemental. Little pixies, and couples, gay men, young women and little girls. You can see that they're really special and cool and you can really see who my music helps.

I think that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard!
They're like a community and when I'm going on stage, I realise that I have brought together all of these amazing people who need the music and need each other. The vibe there is just so happy and elevating and accepting, which is what I've always wanted and what I needed as a teenager. It's overwhelming. I'm very grateful. My career started at Eurovision, with was my first song, so there was no way for me to grow it from the beginning, to get people on my side slowly but surely. And this is what is happening right now. I get to have and grow my audience with the best people ever and I'm very, very excited about it.

You give so much in your music and recent single ‘Wonderful & Great’ is the most beautiful song, it’s just saying, ‘Hey, you're great, you're so fucking cool.’
Thank you! I thought about how a lot of songs are about me, me, me. I'm bad, I'm amazing, I'm super invincible. Look at me! I thought about how little we uplift each other. When we go out, me and my friends, we finish a party at 4am, so we can walking home without feeling bad about it or to stay awake, we sing a song to each other and walk the streets like it's a runway. And this is kind of a version of that song: ‘every time I walk in the street, everybody say oh my god, there's she is.’ Instead of people looking at us like ‘they're doing the walk of shame’ or ‘they're walking at 4am, that's inappropriate’ it was just for us to walk that walk with fun and pride.

I read that you often play your demos to local kids to see if they're feeling it. is this one they loved?
This one is a big hit with kids. I get videos from angry parents that their kids are obsessed with a video and when they are crying they asked to see it and it calms them down. Something about a lot of my music is very soothing and appropriate for kids. I try not to curse in a lot of my songs but I'm a very curse-y person and it's very difficult for me not too big not to not to curse because my songs are already very childlike. And because I speak a different language, for me ‘fuck’ is like an everyday thing, I don't hear it as a curse in my head. For me it's an enthusiastic word and I forget what it actually means. So whenever I write a song and then play it to the label, the label comes back says ‘you have to you have to change half of it’! For me, cursing is amazing but for other people it's just horrifying and it actually stops them from listening to the good music. I do love a curse here and there, but it's not there to horrify it's just there because English is not my mother tongue and it sounds good!

Obviously, you have been everywhere with your world tour. You’ve also performed at some incredible Pride events as well, even headlining with Christina Aguilera, that must have been amazing.
Yeah, that was very cool. Stonewall is a very important event, it was very important to me due to everything happening with with the gay community right now. Violence is on the rise in so many countries, and it seems like there is hatred, a wave of negativity that we haven't seen in years. I’ve been sad for quite a while because of the things that are happening in my country and in other countries. It feels like we're stepping backwards in a lot of ways. So it's very important to me right now to show up to every Pride event that I can. I was singing in the Pride Parade in Malta, I was like, two weeks ago, I did the Stonewall Day which is a very, very important historical event that that we should never forget. I was singing at the Out & Equal conference, it is a world organisation with a mission to promote inclusion and belonging in workplaces. It can be life and death for people, for them to belong in their place of work. For me, it's literally life or death, this mission of being there with my family and friends and to help them shine a light over what's dark. I believe we should be free and democratic. It seems like it's getting darker all over the world, and I hope that the light will win.

‘Wonderful & Great’ is out now. You can download and stream here.
To keep up with all things Netta you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.