As I grow older, I find that one of the very few albums that have withstood the test of time for me is Regina Spektor’s 2009 album “Far.” For reasons that escape me, I remember reading a review that drew me to this quirky sound that popped lyrically with wit. Even the somber, gut-wrenching “Laughing With” keeps coming back in odd ways, such as in a powerful moment on The Leftovers. I always found those songs to be so insightful, mixing levels of humor with deeper messages while set atop a piano that never lost the hooks. I found each of the songs getting stuck in my head at different times in my life, realizing that I had to pop on “Two Birds” just to cleanse my sanity.
And yet, for an album that has become so significant to me, I never listened to a second Spektor album. I’d be reminded now and then to do so when her music would appear in movies ranging from (500) Days of Summer (2009) and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). And yet, I’ve gone over a decade just wanting to pop on “Blue Lips” and remember how brilliant I think every line is. It was a reminder that I kept putting off, and I can’t tell you why. It’s not like most music that I just grew away from. I genuinely never stopped thinking about “Far” for more than a few months at a time.
That is why when listening to a podcast recently, I felt myself taken aback by the news that Spektor used to be great. Even by my standards, I was shocked to learn that they were referring to the 2003 self-released album “Soviet Kitsch,” itself a play on Stalinist-style communism. It would become her major label debut a year later and would launch her whole career. “Us” would be featured in (500) Days of Summer, and it’s strange how I just never caught on.
Every last song on “Soviet Kitsch” is a breath of fresh art for the chamber pop that I often associate with piano. Every note feels like one that I wanted to listen to again. The lyrics feel rich with this sly attack that demanded you rewind and give it another listen. Spektor is a great storyteller at heart, and it’s amazing to hear her being so playful with a pop song. The way a chorus uses call and response with nothing more than a whisper is unlike anything I’ve heard before. Even the random decision to throw in a ribald punk melody on “Your Honor” makes me feel like she’s an antagonist, doing everything to catch you off-guard.
The opening song, “Ode to a Divorce” begins with a heartbeat that slowly enters the listener into this strange world. What’s more striking that a despairing song about separation is the ideas that she lobbies into the lyrics. She talks about food lodged into a mouth, forever stuck with someone that you’re trying to break down easily. It’s a comical detail, and yet it’s treated with utmost sincerity and heartbreak that you’re taken aback by the song. It’s one about economic struggles, of being alone and depressed. She sings “Can you help a brother out?” reflecting a need to reach out and have some help on the journey.
Are these lyrics honest? As a 23-year-old, it’s tough to say if she would’ve been divorced. Still, there are stories about people who were impressed with her lyricism, telling these brazen stories about having children (“Chemo Limo”) and revealing that she didn’t have any. As much as music is often perceived as autobiographical, it’s even more fun to approach storytellers who take creative licenses, embodying archetypes that they’ll never be. Spektor, to some extent, feels like that. Even if you could read them as impersonal, she still somehow has more humanity and respect for them than you’d expect a cheeky performer to have.
I personally love the progression of “Poor Little Rich Boy” from this perspective. The pretentious undergrad has become a trope by this point, thinking that their knowledge somehow makes them better. If you’re anyone who is smart in a quieter way, you’ll know how annoying it is. She never outright calls it sarcasm, but there’s no better way to read this exchange, going from the Verse into the Chorus:
[Verse 2]
Poor little rich boy, all the world is okay
The water runs off your skin and down into the drain
You're reading Fitzgerald, you're reading Hemingway
They're both super smart, and drinking in the cafes
[Chorus]
But you don't love your girlfriend
You don't love your girlfriend
And you think that you should, but she thinks that she's fat
It’s an absence of emotion, one that people who consider themselves “misunderstood” would likely fall back on. How could they ever love if nobody loves them? It’s narcissistic and kind of funny. Even if I personally admire F. Scott Fitzgerald, I get the sentiment as a nod to “The Great Gatsby,” about a man deluded into believing that the past is greater than the present. I can’t even tell you about Ernest Hemmingway’s writing, but from all accounts, he’s kind of an alcoholic jerk. We’re crying for a poor little rich boy who thinks his problems are worse, but does he really know what pain is? Given that the next song, “Carbon Monoxide” references Sylvia Plath’s suicide, it’s amazing how she contrasts the literary world even if she makes it all sound personal.
Then there’s “Us,” which is clearly a high point in her early career. It’s most apparent in her piano playing, which sounds like a light sprint through a jubilant field of flowers. You can feel the optimism radiating from the sun above. The notes, repetitive and quick, create an overwhelming sensation of joy that makes you feel nostalgic, ready to fall in love all over again. As the lyrics came into play, the story of making a statue of us suddenly becomes the greatest topic in the world. Given that she’s discussed a variety of themes on this from divorce to suicide, one can find placing an optimistic number near the center of the album to be another cheeky joke.
Then again, the song is only secretly positive, featuring a theme of people imposing their interests on others:
They made a statue of us
And put it on a mountaintop
Now tourists come and stare at us
Blow bubbles with their gum
Take photographs of fun, have fun
They'll name a city after us
And later say it's all our fault
Then they'll give us a talking to
Then they'll give us a talking to
'Cause they've got years of experience
In theory, Spektor hasn’t done anything and yet she’s already in trouble. Who are the “us” in this song? It’s hard to really say, but still, there is a bright collage of details. It feels like some perverse play on kings and queens who are given shrines to be celebrated for centuries, believing that nobody is above another. It could be reflective of her youth in Russia, though I don’t know for sure. While the relationship itself has a sweet quality, the bittersweet text makes it all the more fun, as if Spektor can never please anyone.
For me, “Sailor Song” may be the highest point on the entire album, featuring a song about a sailor born in Kentucky whose “anchor couldn’t even reach the bottom of a bathtub.” It’s comical as it reflects a man failing to live up to his dreams, who should have been in another state. Even the chorus, which says “Mary Anne’s a bitch,” is a play on words that become more delectable when you realize that it’s the name of a ship. I’m not entirely sure why there’s a girl that will “kiss you till your lips bleed,” but I love how vivid and full of personality the song is, managing to use such a strange scenario to reflect a shortcoming of small-town America.
The next noteworthy song “The Ghost of Corporate Future” feels like a strong commentary on capitalism, that finds a once optimistic view fading into the future, where the effects of their short-sighted perception begin to play against them. She talks about plastic and the decay that their products wrought on society. She thinks of a much different world, and features one of the most compassionate verses:
People are just people
They shouldn't make you nervous
The world is everlasting
It's coming and it's going
If you don't toss your plastic
The streets won't be so plastic
And if you kiss somebody
Then both of you'll get practice
Given that she sang in the bridge “your children have grown and you never made your wife moan,” it’s interesting how she sways between vindictive and critical statements to something resembling constructive advice. It’s another song full of humor and ideas that will make you step back and recognize what makes her genius. She’s capable of making the struggles of an era stand out with exemplary force, and all while keeping a chipper tone.
By the end, there is a sense of discovery with every song. For most people, making comical songs that deconstruct the folk and pop scenes would be grating. There’d be more focus on jokes than ideas, and I feel like Spektor has found a middle ground that actually makes you stop and want to listen closer, understanding what else she has to say. She treats these stories not as directly positive or negative, but ones to be critical and bittersweet in equal measure. Given that she sings it with a comical focus, it consumes the listener in a state of unique bliss that she has only improved upon, continuing to become more eccentric and personal in equal measure.
Unlike the majority of recent topics for this column, I feel an eagerness to replay it immediately. I feel like I’ve done myself a great disservice by not listening to “Soviet Kitsch” much earlier. Maybe in 2009 when I consumed “Far” for the fifth time, I should’ve turned over and found a personal favorite. Maybe I should continue to go forward, exploring what she has to say after “Far.” So much of her career remains a big mystery to me, and I want to believe that I’ll dismantle that problem immediately.
I am with those who will go out of their way to say that “Soviet Kitsch” is a masterpiece. As someone who’s more drawn to the lyrical component of music, I’m a bit blissful with every song on here, finding a reason to laugh and nod approvingly. There’s a lyrical dexterity that is bound to get stuck in my head, remembering these silly turns of phrases that hold far more weight than I even know right now. There is so much anticipation and hope I get listening to this, that I’ve found a treasure trove of ideas waiting to be consumed. I can only hope that what others have said about her isn’t true and this is the best that it gets.
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