Soviet Kitsch - Regina Spektor

I think it's true to say that you don't have to be mad to be a female singer-songerwriter, but it helps! All of my favourite female singers have more than just a hint of eccentricity and Regina Spektor more so than most. Born in Moscow and brought up in New York, her music is a melting pot of musical styles and impossible to pin down. The fact that she is a classically trained pianist has drawn comparisons to Tori Amos, her eccentricity has seen ...
...to classify and describe or compare, as she is one of the most unique voices I've come across. Unafraid to sacrifice vocal beauty for expression and experimentation, her vocal ranges from soft whispering, to punk like shrieking, to beatbox like sounds. Her influences range from jazz, to Yiddish klezmer music, to blues, to cabaret, to punk, to classical, even to drunken bar songs, flitting from one to the next without blinking an eye.

... more

I think it's true to say that you don't have to be mad to be a female singer-songerwriter, but it helps! All of my favourite female singers have more than just a hint of eccentricity and Regina Spektor more so than most. Born in Moscow and brought up in New York, her music is a melting pot of musical styles and impossible to pin down. The fact that she is a classically trained pianist has drawn comparisons to Tori Amos, her eccentricity has seen her likened to Bjork, but really her style is impossible to classify and describe or compare, as she is one of the most unique voices I've come across. Unafraid to sacrifice vocal beauty for expression and experimentation, her vocal ranges from soft whispering, to punk like shrieking, to beatbox like sounds. Her influences range from jazz, to Yiddish klezmer music, to blues, to cabaret, to punk, to classical, even to drunken bar songs, flitting from one to the next without blinking an eye.

The album opens with the melancholy "Ode to Divorce", with piano and mournful violin the perfect backdrop for this pondering from a jilted woman. Lyrically, Spektor is achingly simple but all the more effective for it: "The food that I'm eating/Is suddenly tasteless/I know I'm alone now/I know what it tastes like/So break me to small parts/Let go in small doses/But spare some for spare parts/There might be some good ones". Many of her most effective songs are first person character studies, rather than Regina herself speaking, and nowhere does she achieve this effect more beautifully than here.

In "Your Honour" and "Poor Little Rich Boy" she displays a more aggressive punk edged vocal style full of energy, reducing the backing to a sparse percussion for the latter with her playing the piano with her left hand and hitting a chair with a drumstick with the other. It's easy to see from these two songs why she's been heralded as part of the "anti-folk" movement. "Sailor Song" continues in much the same vein, telling the story of Mary Anne, and building to a rousing drunken chorus that sounds like it could well have originated from a chance meeting with some sailors in a darkened pub in the early hours of the morning.

However, it is in her piano-driven melancholy ballads that she is most successful - the album's closer, Somedays, being one of the most beautiful and bittersweet songs I've heard in a long time and allows her to reveal a touching vulnerability in her voice. "Us", one of the album's singles, is an upbeat poppy ballad, taking a refreshing look at a relationship. "The Flowers" is another of the album's highlights, beginning quietly before taking off into a Yiddish influenced climax. Her song writing is often schizophrenic, taking surprising twists and turns, but retaining a lovely melodic simplicity that perfectly complements her straightforward lyrics.

She is drawn to the rather bleak subjects of death in "Chemo Limo" and "Carbon Monoxide" which she is unafraid to tackle in a wry and witty manner, and "Ghost of Corporate Future" further showcases her quirky sense of humour. If you don't raise a wry smile at the lyrics "when he gets to the crowded subway platform he takes off both of his shoes, he steps right into somebody's fat loogie and everyone who sees him says "ewww", everyone who sees him says "ewww"" then you're probably not going to appreciate her sense of humour!

In terms of an introduction to Regina Spektor, I would recommend her third album, Begin to Hope, over this, as it is a little more mainstream and less, well to be frank, weird! The production on this is far less polished and more raw, but this seems to suit her style very well. Like the best musicians, she's not an artist you are likely to appreciate fully on first listen, but the songs quickly grow on you and offer something new with each listen. 

...less