Regina Spektor
5:30pm, AT&T Blue Room stage
Regina Spektor is a study in contrasts. The Moscow-born, Jewish singer-songwriter filters classical sensibilities through a refreshingly modern perspective, with a voice like Billie Holiday and an attention to detail that�s at times both profoundly poetic and utterly prosaic.
�Everything is all flipped for me,� Spektor says. �I tend to find really big things kind of mundane and little things really exciting. I�m also one of those people that won�t take the photograph when the cool thing is happening in fear of missing out in the moment. I�m not much of a documenter, but things tend to linger with me.�
Her breakthrough third LP, Begin to Hope (Sire), sounds like a collection of short stories, alternating between delicate piano odes and comical two-chord punk rock tales, with brief tangents into burlesque pop and electronica. �I don�t value consistency,� Spektor explains. �I don�t value cohesiveness, any of the things that supposedly make good records. I find those things tremendously boring. To me, a record is a way to show as many sides of yourself as possible. I love doing whatever I want and compiling it all together.�
Due largely to her status as a VH1 �You Oughta Know� artist, Begin to Hope has achieved unexpected commercial success, both here and afar, but what happens when your average consumer, who buys the album for the sweet, staccato-stringed lead single �Fidelity� encounters �That Time� (�remember that other time when you OD�ed for the second time�)?
�I guess if someone can�t handle it, there�s a lot of other stuff to choose from,� the Brooklyn-bred songstress laughs. �Really I don�t give a fuck, but I do appreciate when people can relate to any one thing though. I know it sounds like a paradox, but it�s exactly how I feel.�
This article appears in September 14 • 2007.