Regina Spektor used to reply when people left comments on her MySpace page. Now, with a busy touring schedule, she barely has time to write e-mails to her good friends. She doesn’t even have time to approve her ongoing friend requests. “Now my dad checks them in. He’s on there up to three hours a day,” Spektor said during a recent stop in Toronto.
She now has over 118,000 MySpace friends. To put things in perspective, Alanis Morissette has about 58,000 and Jay-Z has less than 15,000. “To see such a response is encouraging. It makes musicians happy to know their music is being listened to,” she said. And people are definitely listening.
Spektor’s most recent album, “Begin to Hope,” released in June, is still gaining a lot of attention. Her music has recently appeared on the hit shows “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI,” her music videos are in rotation on MTV, and VH1 labelled her an “artist on the rise.”
Because of the recent attention, you may have just heard of her. But don’t think for a second that she’s an overnight success.
Spektor’s music career started in the Bronx, New York, after moving from Russia when she was nine. She spent years self-promoting and playing small venues in what some have called the “anti-folk” scene of New York City.
“I used to just give out burned CDs to whoever was at the bar that night, and they would give it to their friends,” she said in her quiet, innocent voice.
Although she’s signed to a large label now (Sire), she is a musician who resists conforming under industry pressure. Before leaving her days of playing coffee houses and being her own manager, she stepped lightly into the music industry. “It feels good to work hard for a long time and have it slowly come together… not being pimped out or manufactured,” she said.
Spektor brags about having a great lawyer in her corner when it came time to signing the big record deal. “My lawyer is one of a small group of lawyers that really cares for the artist,” she said, explaining how she “tortured” the label executives before signing anything. “I kept saying, ‘I’m an artist! I’m an artist!’” she said, painting a portrait of her views on artistic control. “If you’re doing it [making music] for the money, you might as well open a store. You shouldn’t bother with art. You don’t fuck around with that stuff, it’s sacred,” she said in a miniature outburst, before ending her rant with a gentle giggle, something she tends to do when speaking about her music.
Her particular brand of art — at times comparable to Feist and Joni Mitchell — is based around her soft voice and piano playing. On this album, she experiments with genre and with degrees of instrumentation. One of the most effective tracks on the album is “Samson,” a track with little more than Spektor’s piano and her voice. Other tracks use drums and other instruments for depth and variety.
“Every song on this album has been my favourite at some time,” she said, comparing the difficult task to choosing one’s favourite child. She likes them all, which comes out in her live performances. A show back in New York reportedly went on for more than three hours.
For the next few months, her life is on the road, finishing up her North American tour.
You can hear some of Regina Spektor’s music, watch music videos or become her friend at myspace.com/reginaspektor
Win one 2 Regina Spektor prize packs. Enter now!
It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a brand new album on a whim. As a student, I have little disposable income so you had better believe I expect purchases such as this to pay off.
