You can always tell when an artist is truly invested in the music they’re making, and after giving “Side Effects” a listen just this week, I think it’s obvious that Nya is the real deal. Nya’s honey-sweet vocal and old-timey harmonies are two of the biggest reasons why “Side Effects” feels familiar and bewitching at the same time, but looking even closer allows us to enter the world of an inspiring artist who isn’t shy about wearing her heart on her sleeve. That’s become strikingly uncommon lately, hence her incredibly fresh appeal this December.
I love the emotion Nya is putting into her performance here, and her vocal remains the constant focus in “Side Effects” specifically because of the passion she has with the microphone in her hands. The music video features her playing the part she was made for – commanding the stage, and doing a smashing good job I should note, and without having to bring in a lot of props she gets the attention of the entire audience via her wit and melodic might (of which she has quite a bit). She doesn’t want to use anything too corny to make her point here, but she also doesn’t mind throwing some retro ornamentation into the track, either.
The keyboard slinks around the background adding some mystique to the fold that I love all the more when going back and analyzing the song through again, and I don’t think it needed to be anything more than an understated force to provide Nya all the groove she needs. Her voice is already such a potent source of power in this piece that had the keys been given more leadership over the arrangement the whole single probably would have sounded a bit off-balance and unnecessarily over the top in comparison to this elegant piece here.
There aren’t many players who are comfortable with using the kind of meat and potatoes-style mix “Side Effects” features, but I think that just goes to show how much confidence Nya has in herself and the music she’s making in 2022. She has no fat to come between the muscularity of her melodies and us, the hungry fans who haven’t had much pop worth writing home about in the last few years, and if that isn’t something that every critic and audiophile should be respecting at the moment, I do not know what else would be.
I just discovered the music of Nya around the time her new single and its music video were released online, but I can already tell that I’m in for a wild ride with her discography as it grows in the years to come. Nya has a good handle on her career and she hasn’t even stepped into the studio to work on the outline for what will certainly be an amazing future, and as long as she stays humble with her craft (and keeps making tunes like this one), hers will be a story you’re going to be reading about a lot more often in 2023.
Mindy McCall
