A veteran of New York's anti-folk scene, songwriter Regina Spektor makes quirky, highly eclectic, but always personal music. Born and raised in Moscow until age nine, Spektor listened to her father's bootleg tapes of Western pop and rock as a young child and also learned to play piano. She and her family moved from Russia to the Bronx, where she was immersed in American culture (at the time, hers was the first Russian family in the borough in 20 years). Eventually, Spektor and her family became part of a community that balanced her Russian Jewish roots with her new home's culture. Meanwhile, she continued to practice piano anywhere she could, including at her synagogue, until her family got a piano of their own.
Bio by Pandora
I recently discovered this fabulous artist while listening to Moldy Peaches radio on Pandora. I was immediately intoxicated by the sound of her voice and her enchanting piano skills. Now I’m not usually a piano solo person by this turns the instrument into a symphony of passion. Her earliest stuff is quirky and alterative typical of a young woman experiencing a new country. Her second album Soviet Kitsch is edgy and expressive focusing on her background and the perceptions of the American public. This early albums remind me of other talented young artist such as Lily Allen, Kate Nash and Florence Welch.
As she matures so does her music. She begins experimenting with deeper subjects such as religion and human nature in Begin To Hope and her newest album Far. Although she is from a strongly religious family Specter spotlights the drawbacks of blind faith as well as the danger of being closed minded, whether in the name of god or the name of science.
However my favourite of her songs, Laughing With (God) advocates for organized religion or at lest sounds like it at first. I am agnostic but I do not believe in avoiding something that is beautiful because it involves God. Don’t spin this the wrong way laughing with in no way a church hymen. She praises the power of faith in time of hardship in the chorus.
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God
When they're starving or freezing or so very poor
Yet in the next line the she points out the lunacy of that same faith with,
God could be funny
When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious.
Some of her songs like Laughing With, Samson, and Blue Lips have a bluesy timeless feeling, in the style of jazz legends such as Billie Holiday. Others have a new age style that is uniquely Spektor. These later albums remind me of the best of the Lennon and McCartney, blackbird, hey Jude, across the universe, golden slumbers, and Eleanor Rigby.
Minerva
No comments:
Post a Comment