Russian-born New York-based singer-songwriter Regina Spektor
debuted with the self-released tour de force of 11:11 (2001)
that displayed her eccentric theatrical singing and her "antifolk" lyrics,
with a style that is an unlikely hybrid of
Joni Mitchell and
Joan LaBarbara.
The songs explore a variety of settings.
Notable are the ones for voice and bass only because they emphasize her
jazz crooning: the nocturnal Rejazz, the
vibrant Wasteside and the almost
childish Marry Ann.
The piano-driven songs runs the gamut from the musichall skit Love Affair
to the drunk blues 2.99 Cent Blues, with a peak in
Back Of A Truck, shaped like a Broadway showtune.
Her vocal acrobatis shine in the
frenzied a-cappella gospel Flyin and in the
surreal narrative eight-minute number Pavlov's Daughter.
The stately Braille sounds like another unlikely hybrid:
Warren Zevon and
Lauryn Hill.
Songs (2002) was a minor addition to it, despite Samson, Consequence of Sound, Lounge, and
Lacrimosa.
She embraced glossy arrangements on Soviet Kitsch (Sire, 2004)
for a few songs, like
the cello-driven Ode To Divorce and the fully orchestral Us.
But the center of mass is still represented by
piano-driven narratives like The Flowers, Ghost of Corporate Future, and especially the six-minute melodrama Chemo Limo.
The eccentric moments are fewer (Poor Little Rich Boy), but,
out of the blue, she unleashes a garage-rock rave-up, Your Honor.
She progressively turned towards a more and more mainstream sound with keyboards and drum-machines on
Begin To Hope (Sire, 2006), with On the Radio,
and on the stale Far (Sire, 2009), with Folding Chair and The Calculation.
What We Saw from the Cheap Seats (2012) is split between
introverted and melancholic songs
(notably the slow-tempo meditations on love Firewood and How)
and somewhat ironic songs
like the Caribbean-French ditty Don't Leave Me and the
march-like novelties Oh Marcello and Patron Saint.
The bombastic soul ballad Small Town Moon and the rousing orchestral The Party aim for a wider audience.
Remember Us to Life (2016), her best album in a decade, contains
the touching piano ballad Grand Hotel,
the naive and fragile The Light,
the heartwarming lullaby The Visit,
and the orchestral Joanna Newsom-esque Seller of Flowers.
Her singing is much more streamlined than at the beginning and occasionally this increases the pathos, as in the six-minute Obsolete and in the almost recited The Trapper and the Furrier.
She flirts with rapping in Small Bill$ and with
bubblegum-pop of the 1960s in the plainly poppy Older and Taller.
The nine-minute orchestral fantasia Spacetime Fairytale is the centerpiece of
Home, Before and After (2022) but the album lacks an emotional core
because the
piano ballads are less effective (Coin and Loveology soar like an old Moody Blues dirge) and the rest runs the gamut from
bland pop ditties (One Man's Prayer) to
rap-soul pomp (Up the Mountain).
