Regina Spektor - Far Review

Posted by Michael James on 07.01.2009

Can Regina Spektor's new album overcome a horrible first impression and my anti-Strokes biases?

My first impression of Regina Spektor in 2004 was not good. Every music magazine seemed to be plastered with ads for her third album Soviet Kitsch, picturing her in a military hat swigging a bottle of vodka and touting her as a discovery of unbearably overrated The Strokes.



It was easy to cast her off as another “in your face” female singer, a la Peaches or Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a musical archetype that for whatever reason has never appealed to me. However, helped in part by the oh-so-light summer release schedule and the fact that two songs from her 2006 album Begin to Hope had somehow ended up on my Ipod, I decided to sit down with her new album Far and give Spektor a first second chance.



Track Listing:
1. The Calculation
2. Eet
3. Blue Lips
4. Folding Chair
5. Machine
6. Laughing With
7. Human of the Year
8. Two Birds
9. Dance Anthem of the 80s
10. Genius Next Door
11. Wallet
12. One More Time with Feeling
13. Man of a Thousand Faces

Although far from a masterpiece (no pun intended), Far was definitely worth a listen, if only to reinforce the age-old lesson that “you can’t judge a book by its cover”. The album’s thirteen songs primarily feature on Spektor’s classically-trained piano and soft singing voice, yet incorporate enough instrumental flourishes and variations to avoid repetition. Songs such as “Blue Lips,” seem to combine several songs in one, with wholesale changes in instrumentation and tempo that are less unexpected once you realize Spektor studied composition at a music conservatory, graduating with honors in three years.

Spektor also uses her voice as an added instrument in her repertoire. Not content with singing, she uses “Folding Chair” as an opportunity to unveil her dolphin impersonation. Elsewhere on the upbeat “Dance Anthem of the 80s,” Spektor starts the track with vocal percussion which veers dangerously close to actual beat-boxing. These vocal flourishes, while quirky (and occasionally grating), certainly keep the album from sounding like any other.

Lyrically, Spektor alternates between a stark simplicity and a dense word soup that is nearly impossible to interpret. While there is no requirement that a song have an easily decipherable meaning, the more direct lyrics on Far are by far the most alluring, as epitomized by the standout track, “Wallet.” The song is a simple tale of a woman searching the contents of a lost wallet before returning it to a local Blockbuster store so they can track its owner down using his membership card. However, Spektor creates a beautiful imagery with lyrics like “I was so tired as I walked through my door/ I let all the contents of your wallet on the floor/ And like a holy relic/ Or a mystery novel/ I thumbed them in the dim light/searching for a clue.” A slight digression—why couldn’t Spektor had found my lost cell phone rather than the cabdriver who was nice enough to leave it on top of a phone booth, but not nice enough to let me know which one? But anyway, where was I….

Other standout tracks on Far include “Machine,” in which Spektor layers a jarring piano style with lyrics about a vaguely dystopian future where you are “living in your pre-war apartment, soon to be your post-war apartment.” In the first single “Laughing God,” she ponders the hypocrisy of people who enjoy making a joke of religious believers, yet still call on God for help if they are confronted with a crisis. In contrast, songs like “Genius Next Door” and “Man of a Thousand Faces” feature beautifully melancholy piano performances that are, if not quite wasted, at least rendered much less memorable by lyrics which are a jumble of enchanted lakes and eating lumps of sugar. I very well may be in the minority however, as Spektor fans have posted extensively on websites like songmeaning.net deciphering the lyrics to both songs.

Quite a few songs on Far fail to make much of an impression. However, one of the best things that can be said about the album and Spektor in general, is that from her music to her lyrics she is entirely unique. Someone who takes a quick overview of her career, replete with “highlights” that include her songs being featured in Grey’s Anatomy and J.C. Penney advertisements might be tempted to lump her together with the multitude of indistinctive artists who frequently end up as background music. Yet, after one listen to Far, it’s easy to see that Regina Spektor is more than meets the eye.

If you’re like me, most of your music ends up in an endless .mp3 “shuffle.” In order to preserve your valuable disk space, here’s what’s Ipod-worthy off Far : “Eet”, “Blue Lips”, “Machine”, “Laughing With”, “Dance Anthem of the ‘80s”, “Wallet”, “One More Time with Feeling”.

The 411:  Far was an unexpected surprise, with many of the songs featuring extremely interesting lyrical and musical choices. While quite a few of the songs are already forgotten, Regina Spektor has managed to make somewhat of a believer... as long as she stops touring with The Strokes.

Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]