Soundbite: "Begin to Hope"

Regina Spektor “Begin To Hope” SIRE
RECORDS

Regina Spektor is that weird girl at your fifth-grade sleepover
““ shamelessly quirky and completely charming. Except that
instead of lip-syncing into a hairbrush for her friends, she is
singing pop songs she wrote herself for whoever is bold enough to
listen. And it does take boldness.

For starters, there’s the eclecticism of genre.
Spektor’s music touches on classical, punk, hip-hop and jazz,
all of which come to life in “Begin to Hope” with the
smart and experimental use of the studio. Spektor originally wrote
most of the music on piano and then translated those parts into
different instruments and recording techniques so the songs retain
their cohesiveness.

Then there is her voice: sometimes operatic, other times airy,
and even other times, when it’s most impressive, seemingly
computerized. On songs such as “On the Radio,” which
employs stutters, groans, chirps and crisp articulation, Spektor
can naturally use her voice to imitate computerized sounds like
those in electronic music, turning her voice into an instrument of
its own.

This skill, combined with her unabashed and idiosyncratic
delivery of the lyrics, uncovers the wittiness of her music. In
“Summer in the City,” for example, she sings
“Summer in the city / means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage! /
And I start to miss you / baby sometimes,” her voice perking
up with each “cleavage,” making it difficult not to
smile. But as she continues, it becomes obvious she’s doing
it for that exact purpose ““ to find whatever humor she can in
a situation that ultimately is heartbreaking for her.

“Begin to Hope” signals a growth from her past two
albums in this ability to fuse together kitsch and class without
losing appeal. The first half includes “Fidelity,”
“Samson” and “Hotel Song,” respectively the
catchiest, sweetest and most playful tracks on the album. These
tracks especially showcase the influence of producer David Kahne,
the man behind the boards for mainstream acts including The Strokes
and Sugar Ray.

But the growth isn’t fully complete. Because Spektor
introduces “Begin to Hope” as pop music with a touch of
experimentation, the second half of the album, which is
predominantly experimental with a touch of pop, sticks out sorely.
The songs are harsher, the melodies indigestible and the style
uncomfortable. They are not bad, but they are also comparatively
inaccessible, so their individual messages can be lost.

But with this fact alone, Spektor challenges yet another norm:
Should having universal appeal and relatability really be a
requirement for good pop music? Or is it important to also be
quirky?

Evidently, Spektor thinks it is. Not everyone will agree with
her, and that’s what gives “Begin to Hope”
personality.

“”mdash; Kiran Puri [email protected]