November 17 – As stage lights glimmer down upon VH1’s artist of the month, Regina Spektor, her fair skin glows and then turns to a bright blushing crimson as a sold-out crowd sings along to the rhythmical “Better.” Spektor seems embarrassed – or surprised that the crowd full of petite pale-faced bright-eyed look-alikes is there to see her and know every lyric by heart down to its exact syllabic enunciation. “Good job guys,” Spektor says, still flustered by the crowd’s reaction. Spektor does not yet seem accustomed to the mainstream attention she has gotten that has garnered her a division of fans. It is evident throughout her performance as she bashfully directs her eyes to the ceiling or her bandmates – anywhere other than her devotee’s cheery faces.
There is good reason that fans are flocking to Spektor’s concerts, her peculiar “anti-folk” pop melodies woven through and through with an amalgamation of genres at times are both strikingly beautiful and extraordinarily meaningful.
Other times she wanders off the beaten path into complete nonsensicality – leaving one to wonder what kind of drugs she was on so that they could avoid making the same mistake. Often times it seems the reasons people love Spektor are the same reasons others loath her.
As Spektor warbled through her 20-song set she would transition from plinking on the ivories to thrashing on a six-string and back again. While the songs that saw Spektor beating on the guitar were tedious and unnerving at times the ones that saw her put to use her classical piano training were almost enough to make one forget about her shortcomings. Case in point, Spektor’s “That Time” has a line that goes, “Remember that month I only ate boxes of tangerines, SO CHEAP AND JUICY!” Spektor says in a high pitched squall. From that moment on in the concert I had a bad taste in my mouth – how could someone so beautiful write something so stupid?
If you haven’t heard the song you honestly can’t understand the utter wretchedness of this one line. The first time I heard it, it almost made me stop listening to “Begin to Hope.”
But then Spektor washed the bad taste out of my mouth as she sang “Samson” in a soft angelic timbre. This song displays everything that is good about Spektor from her some- times nonsensical abstract narrative lyrics along with her unorthodox vocal style. “Samson” is reason enough to go see Spektor live and to pick up a copy of “Begin to Hope” – it is perhaps one of the, if not the best song released this year and is sure to make its way onto a few mixed-tapes to fair-skinned bright-eyed girls.

Author