Regina Spektor

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Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor in concert, June 2006.
Regina Spektor in concert, June 2006.
Background information
Born February 18, 1980 (age 26),
Moscow, Russia
Genre(s) Anti-folk
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, record producer
Instrument(s) Piano, Vocals, Guitar
Years active 2001 - present
Label(s) Sire Records

Regina Spektor (Russian: Регина Спектор) (born February 18, 1980) is a Russian-born American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City's East Village.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Spektor was born in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union to a musical family. Her father, a photographer, was also an amateur violinist, and her mother was a music professor in a Russian conservatory; she now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York. Her surname, Spektor, is derived from the Russian инспектор ("inspector"). (Jews who registered as inspectors with the Russian government received a favored status with respect to travel.)

Spektor studied classical piano from the age of six, and was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union. The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine, during the period of Perestroika when Jewish citizens were permitted to emigrate.[1] Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, they finally settled in the Bronx, New York.

[edit] Beginnings as a songwriter

In New York, Spektor gained a firm grounding in classical music from her piano teacher, Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music. Although she had always made up songs around the house, Spektor first became interested in songwriting during a visit to Israel in her teenage years. Attracting attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking, she realized she had an aptitude for songwriting. Following this trip, she was first exposed to the work of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which gave her the idea that she could create her own songs.

Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College in Purchase, New York within three years, graduating with honors in 2001. She worked briefly at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin. She gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe. During this period, she sold her self-produced CDs 11:11 and Songs at such performances.

[edit] Style

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Spektor's idiosyncratic songs rely on a mixture of styles and techniques, often starting with a seemingly simple piano riff but ending with moans, nonsense words, warblings, and other strange noises. Spektor states that she has created hundreds of songs, but that she rarely writes any of them down. Unlike the songs of many singer-songwriters, Spektor's are not usually autobiographical, but rather are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination.[2] They range from playfully quirky to bittersweet in character, showing influences from folk, Jewish, Russian, and hip hop, and classical music. She also shows influences, especially in her earliest work, from jazz, blues, and hip-hop music, while her more recent work has tended more towards pop and electronic music. Spektor's musical style has drawn many comparisons to fellow singer-pianists Fiona Apple and Tori Amos. However, Spektor has stated that she works hard to ensure that each of her songs has its own musical style, rather than trying to develop a distinctive style for her music as a whole.

Spektor also explores the various timbres of her voice, including a breathy, angelic high register and a Billie Holiday-like lower register that she often allows to break into a trumpet-like tone quality. She often uses a jazzy vibrato and sliding tones in her voice's middle register. Spektor uses a variety of rather unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips, beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, or the use of a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano or chair. She also uses a strong New York accent on some words, which she states is due to her love of New York and its culture.

Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song. Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses of Latin, Russian, French, and other languages in her songs. Spektor's music is further set apart from mainstream folk music by its frequent literary references, such as to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy", The Little Prince in "Baobabs", Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood in "Paris", Ezra Pound in "Pound of Flesh", Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi", and Oedipus the King in "Oedipus". Recurring themes and topics in Spektor's lyrics include love, death, religion (particularly Biblical and Christian references), city life (particularly New York references), and certain key phrases have been known to recur in different songs by Spektor, such as references to gravediggers, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the name "Mary Ann".

In Spektor's early albums, many of her tracks had a very dry vocal production, with very little reverb or delay added artificially. This is extremely unusual in contemporary music, which is known for heavily altering singer's voices. The impression is that very little was done to tracks in the production phase, giving a general raw feel to Spektor's early work. However, Spektor's more recent albums, particularly Begin to Hope, have put more emphasis into song production and have relied more on traditional pop and rock instruments.[1]

[edit] Performances

Since roughly 2005, Spektor has performed on a bright red Baldwin baby grand piano. She opened for The Strokes in 2003, on her first North American tour. Subsequently, she appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien twice, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno twice, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Last Call with Carson Daly twice. She has toured the United States and Europe. Although she generally only performs original material, she performed her first covers in 2005, of songs by Leonard Cohen and Madonna for the 2nd Annual Jewish Music & Heritage Festival in New York City.

While with The Strokes on their 2003–2004 Room on Fire tour, Spektor performed "Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men" alongside the band.

In 2006, Spektor embarked on a successful headlining tour of the United States and Europe, selling out numerous clubs and theaters.

[edit] Media coverage

Beginning in 2005, Spektor's music has been used in various television programs and commercials. In late 2005 "Us" (from Soviet Kitsch) was used in a commercial as part of the What Do You Want To Watch? series for the United Kingdom's Sky Television. The advert features an impressive clip from a documentary on skateboarder Danny Way. In the summer of 2006, a clip from "Us" was used for the teaser website for Microsoft's Zune project at ComingZune.com, as well as for a promotional campaign for MtvU. "Somedays" was used in a 2005 episode of CSI: NY and "Samson" was used in a 2006 episode of the same series. "On the Radio" was used in an episode of ABC's popular Grey's Anatomy. "Field Below" was used in a 2006 episode titled "The Last Word" of CBS's Criminal Minds. "Fidelity" was also used in a recent episode of "Grey's Anatomy" titled "Sometimes a Fantasy" and in an episode of Veronica Mars titled "Wichita Linebacker". "Better" is currently being used in a commercial for XM Satellite Radio. Spektor also sang the title song "Little Boxes" of Showtime's television series Weeds in the 2006 episode "Mile Deep and a Foot Wide" and her "Ghost of Corporate Future" was used both at the beginning and end of the episode.

Regina Spektor gained much media attention in 2006 when her video for "Fidelity" was viewed over 200,000 times in two days on the YouTube website. This is one of the greatest successes any artist has achieved on YouTube in recent history.[citation needed]

[edit] Discography

Regina Spektor's early albums are quite difficult to find, as most of them have been released exclusively in the United States, although her compilation, Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories, has been released worldwide.

[edit] Albums

[edit] Singles and EPs

[edit] Compilations

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Aizlewood, John (2006-08-24). Regina Spektor: A Triumph That Began With Hope. thislondon.co.uk.
  2. ^ Alonzo, Rod. Making Stuff Up: An Interview With Regina Spektor. WOMANROCK.com.

[edit] External links

[edit] Articles

[edit] Listening

[edit] Interviews

[edit] Video

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