Line #22 Music/ReginaSpektor


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reginaspektor34thannualbmifilmtvvisualg6ndnuq1njfl1_0.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[StealthPun Long live the queeeeen...]]]]
3
4	A Moscow-born singer/songwriter, known for her [[CloudCuckooLander quirky lyrics]]. She has quite a large range, from ear worms to downright depressing ballads. Immigrating from Russia with her parents owing to rising antisemitic pressures, her family lived briefly in Austria and Italy before she moved to New York at age nine -- something she [[RealLifeWritesThePlot has sung about]]. She has since gained a steady ground in the alternative music and anti-folk scene.
5
6	Spektor has been married to Moldy Peaches/Only Son musician Jack Dishel since 2011; they have two children together.
7	----
8	!!Discography
9	* ''11:11'' (2001)
10	* ''Songs'' (2002)
11	* ''Music/SovietKitsch'' (2004)
12	* ''Begin to Hope'' (2006)
13	* ''Far'' (2009)
14	* ''What We Saw From the Cheap Seats'' (2012)
15	* ''Remember Us To Life'' (2016)
16	* ''Home, before and after'' (2022)
17
18	-----
19	!!Her Works Provide Examples Of:
20	* AbusiveParents: "Oedipus" is about a child whose mother has had 32 kids, whose husband plans to have 32 ''more''. Naturally, this trope comes into play.
21	* AnImmigrantsTale: "Rockland County" and "8th Floor" both revolve around the immigrant experience -- the first is Spektor's most autobiographical song, the second a more general allegory for the Russian-American experience.
22	* AuthorAppeal: Her love of literature, music, philosophy, and religion are all made evident in her music.
23	* [[CallBack Previous]] AlbumTitleDrop: "Düsseldorf", a bonus track on the deluxe version of ''Begin to Hope'', features a reference to "Soviet kitsch".
24	* AwardBaitSong: "The Call" for ''Prince Caspian''.
25	* AwesomeMcCoolname: "Regina Spektor". During her appearance on ''Series/TheColbertReport'', Colbert questioned whether or not she was a Soviet sleeper agent, bringing up her awesome "sexy spy name" as evidence.
26	* {{Bathos}}: Epic and beautiful songs will occasionally be peppered with terrible dolphin impressions or beat-boxing that sounds like spitting, and it somehow works.
27	* BerserkButton:
28	** Most of Regina's songs are either quirky and adorable or balladic and depressing, but the live-only song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mArmSi2JaM Ink Stains]]" is her only genuinely ''angry'' song, about her rage towards Holocaust Deniers. It has some uncharacteristically gory imagery ("so who'll be the Jew to make the papers / drenched in blood up to your blue Jew eyeballs") and the song ends with an [[OneWomanWail angry, emotional wail]]. She's also posted on her Myspace blog about her support for Israel because of how the Jews have been exploited and massacred throughout history.
29	** Regina has casually admitted to directly telling loud or unruly audience members to shut up during live performances. Sometimes she even has them kicked out.
30	* BigApplesauce: New York is frequently mentioned in her songs, including locations such as the Williamsburg Bridge.
31	* BilingualBonus: Both "Après Moi" and "8th Floor" contain [[GratuitousRussian untranslated Russian]], the former featuring a poem by Boris Pasternak. "Après Moi" has some [[GratuitousFrench French]] (the title references and includes the famous Louis XV quote, "Après moi, le deluge"), as well.
32	** "Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)", both the English and Russian version.
33	* BlackComedy: "That Time" is full of this, from the protagonist having to bury pieces of a bird she was caring for after a cat got it, to her finding her friend overdosing on drugs twice in the same day, only to realize that she's high as a kite herself.
34	* BreakingTheFourthWall: From "Firewood":
35	-->''Don't look so shocked, don't judge so harsh. You don't know, you're only spying...''
36	* BrooklynRage: Some of her darker songs, like All The Rowboats and Ink Stains, give this impression.
37	* CallAndResponseSong:
38	** "Uh-Merica".
39	** "Hell No", as a duet with Sondre Lerche.
40	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}:
41	** She may be this, but seems to have her head together in interviews. She's probably just [[BunnyEarsLawyer a little weird]] and sweet.
42	** Her official forum has boards for [[LighterAndSofter What We Saw From the Cheap Seats]], [[AllLowercaseLetters far]], albums predating those two, relevant information, space for users to talk, and soup. Guess which board is the most active?
43	--->"I want to write a classic like Yesterday but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head -- I can't help it."
44	* CoolTeacher: Her role in the video for "On the Radio" is a music teacher in an InnerCitySchool.
45	* CountryMusic: She made a strange little trip into the genre with "Love You're A Whore". Her explanation to the crowd at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee:
46	-->'''Regina:''' I'm from Moscow, and then the Bronx, so I'm allowed to do whatever the [[PrecisionFStrike fuck]] I want!
47	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Subverted with her cover of "Chelsea Hotel #2"; the lyrics are kept the same, despite clearly being from a male perspective.
48	* CoverVersion: Music/LeonardCohen's "Chelsea Hotel #2", Music/LeonardCohen's "Hallelujah", Hanna Szenes' "Halikha [=LeKesariya=] (Eli, Eli)", Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes", Music/{{Madonna}}'s "Love Profusion", Music/JohnLennon's "Real Love", Music/{{Radiohead}}'s "No Surprises", and George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
49	* CrapsackWorld: "The Trapper and the Furrier" describes one, with heavy doses of TruthInTelevision
50	-->''What a strange, strange world we live in\
51	Where the good are damned and the wicked forgiven\
52	What a strange, strange world we live in\
53	Those who don't have lose, those who got get given\
54	More, more, more, more''
55	* CrypticConversation: her appearance on Jenny Owen Youngs's "Voice on Tape" has her speaking on Youngs' answering machine about some NoodleIncident in an adorably Russian-accented voice. A conversation between Regina and her brother Bear appears on "Soviet Kitch" under the cryptic title "* * *".
56	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: "The premature ejaculation of his death sentence hit Daniel in the face like a big spitball," from Daniel Cowman. Played equally for laughs and drama.
57	* DoubleVision: The music video for "Better"
58	* DreamSequence: "Chemo Limo" has one about a dying mother of four. In her dream, Creator/BenjaminFranklin watches her kids while she hires a limo, reflecting her real-life wishes.
59	* {{Eagleland}}: "Us" is a deconstruction of Type 1, and immigrants' yearning for the "American dream" is a frequent subject of Regina's work. She then does Type 2 with "Uh-Merica".
60	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Everything before "Begin to Hope". While her recent work is far from normal, her earlier work has much more MindScrew, BlackComedy, mentions of violence and drugs, among other things, and it can be quite jarring to listen to her newer work and then her older work, or vice versa. She seems to be reverting back to that style though, primarily with "What We Saw From the Cheap Seats" and various performances. For a comparison, compare "Pavlov's Daughter" or "Oedipus" to "Two Birds" or "Better".
61	** Regina herself was more of a shy SociallyAwkwardHero in her public appearances in the early years, as immortalized in the "Regina at the Market" video. This trait began to fade around the time ''far'' came out.
62	* EpicRocking: "Spacetime Fairytale" clocks in at just under 9 minutes, "Pavlov's Daughter" at nearly 8 minutes long. "Chemo Limo", "Obsolete" and "Back of a Truck" are around 6 minutes, which is still long for her.
63	* EruditeStoner: PlayedForLaughs in "That Time".
64	* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Quite a few [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ladyladyboners/comments/1unb5t/regina_spektor/ women]] have indicated an attraction to her.
65	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: The famous percussion chair.
66	* FieryRedhead: It can be hard to tell due to its darker shade that can make it appear brown, but Regina has red hair.
67	** [[https://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Regina+Spektor+13th+Annual+Women+In+Film+Female+nSnQ2WZxy0dl.jpg More so]] in recent years.
68	* AGoodNameForARockBand: Talked about in "Making Records":
69	-->''Everything's a possible record cover\
70	Or a possible name for a band that I will never have''
71	* GranolaGirl: Played straight and later parodied in Your Honor.
72	-->''Gargle peroxide, a steak for your eye. Except I'm a vegetarian, so it's a frozen pizza pie.''
73	* GenreBusting[=/=]MediumBlending: Regina enjoys exploring different types of music. Many of her songs are more like character studies, short stories or poetry. "Open", "Daniel Cowman", and "Oedipus" are all very good examples, each being an equal mix of all three.
74	* Creator/HansChristianAndersen: Name dropped in "Prisoners," and his fairy tales have clearly influenced her UrbanFantasy stories.
75	* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: Mentioned in the song "Eet":
76	-->''You ease in your headphones\
77	To drown out your mind...''
78	* HeartbeatSoundtrack: "Ode To Divorce," before the piano kicks in.
79	* HellHotel: The subject of "Grand Hotel", sort of. The hotel itself is pretty nice, but...
80	-->''Somewhere below the grand hotel\
81	There is a tunnel that leads down to hell''
82	* HiddenDepths: She has an incredibly complex view of religion, which she discusses in "Laughing With", which is about how we only thank God for the good things in our life, never our misfortune.
83	* {{Homage}}: The music video for "Us" is an homage to the silent film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-n6EN4DyuE Le Locataire Diabolique]]'' by Georges Meliés.
84	* IndecipherableLyrics: Done intentionally on "A Cannon", which has a couple lines of a sort of gibberish whisper. Though, it could qualify as SingingSimlish.
85	* IronicNurseryTune: her version of [[PublicDomainSoundtrack "Mockingbird"]] degenerates into a story of a poor father desperately trying to connect with his daughter.
86	* LargeHam: Here and there, though "Oh Marcello" gives us this gem all with an over the top Italian accent.
87	-->''Oh, I'm outta jello, '''I'M OUTTA JELLO'''!''
88	* LighterAndSofter:
89	** ''Begin to Hope'' and ''Far'' lost some of the harder edge found in her older songs. It's a far cry from her 1999 demo tapes, in which she actually used the word "cunt".
90	** And then she wrote "Ink Stains" (Regina Spektor meets ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'') and covered Radiohead's depressing "No Surprises." The darkness is back.
91	** "You've Got Time" is dark in and of itself, but it rather light compared to her older works, though is further indication that she's returning to her old style.
92	** Remember Us To Life and her more recent work are a lot less dark than her previous releases.
93	* LiteraryAllusionTitle: "Samson" is based on the [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] story and contains many references to it.
94	** Then there's the bonus track "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7gX8UbDiGA Baobabs]]", using imagery from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Literature/TheLittlePrince.
95	* LonelyPianoPiece: several of her songs convey loneliness, with only a piano and voice. "Somedays," "Summer in the City," "Just Like the Movies" and "Making Records" come to mind.
96	* LyricalDissonance: "Belt", "That Time", "Two Birds" and her song with Ben Folds, "You Don't Know Me".
97	* MagicalRealism: Many of the stories told in her lyrics feature Magical Realism traits (especially the album ''11:11'') and her live-only song "The Bronx" name drops the genre.
98	* MagicKiss: Discussed in "Better".
99	* MarriedToTheJob: In "Fidelity", the singer is so distracted by the compositions and tunes in her head that she can't focus on romance.
100	* MeasuringTheMarigolds: "Loveology" and "The Calculation" are both about how love cannot be calculated.
101	* MelismaticVocals: Especially in ''Dance Anthem of the 80s'', in which she takes us on a Middle Eastern folk music inspired melismatic ride up and down the word "sleep."
102	* MindScrew: Many, many of her songs have very figurative or metaphorical meanings. "Pavlov's Daughter", however, takes the take as her most nightmarish, nonsensical song ever, with several sections, and constantly jumping between a MotorMouth exercise in HellIsThatNoise talking about the music industry and religion, to a slow part about a woman who drools when she hears a bell.
103	* MoodDissonance: "That Time":
104	** "Hey, remember that time when you OD'd?"
105	** "Hey, remember that other time when you OD'ed for the second time?"
106	*** [[MoodWhiplash She goes on to discuss]] how she was herself tripping balls in the hospital waiting room while the other person was overdosing.
107	* MoodWhiplash: While her albums are in general quite eclectic, "Chemo Limo" is in itself a profound example. The verses tell of a single mother of four kids being told she has terminal cancer and are appropriately eerie and mournful. The ''chorus'', however, is a bouncy rapid-fire MotorMouth-ed sass parade of defiance.
108	** "Flyin'" does this too, starting out as a quirky narrative about a little girl who imagines flying out her window... then a teacher makes a move on her and, when she refuses, ''throws her out the window''. The last lines of the song state that she's "been flying ever since", implying she's dead.
109	%%* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong
110	* MultilingualSong: "Après Moi" has verses in English, Russian, and French.
111	** Many of her other songs also qualify, with languages such as Latin and Spanish.
112	* MundaneMadeAwesome: "Wallet" is a beautiful song about... a woman finding a wallet, and giving it to Blockbuster to give back to the original owner.
113	* MushroomSamba: "That Time".
114	-->''While in the waiting room waiting for news of you I hallucinated I could read your mind, and I was on a lot of shit too, but what I saw man, I tell you what, freaky.''
115	* MurderBallad: She and Levon Vincent's surreal version of the old murder ballad [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyi1uPyOvgY "Twa Sisters".]]
116	** "Mary Ann" is a particularly weird one.
117	* TheMusical: Her upcoming "Beauty," an adaptation of "Sleeping Beauty."
118	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Remember Us to Life'' is shaping up to be one. Both [[https://youtu.be/BAy4RMI82NQ "Bleeding Heart"]] and [[https://youtu.be/B8Zmv2LJe88 Small Bill$]] are significantly less piano-based and more synth-based
119	* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: She is best known for two things: firstly, being cute. Secondly, being quite creepy. Many of her songs are about death and its relation to society.
120	* NoEnding: "Two Birds" and "Oedipus", in order [[InvokedTrope to encourage]] AlternativeCharacterInterpretation.
121	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: "Mermaid", as it's a retelling of the Creator/HansChristianAndersen tale in an UrbanFantasy setting. She mentions that the painful stabbing feeling in her feet causes her to bleed. She claims to have sold her voice for, among other things, a bottle of gin and a bump of cocaine before the narrative goes completely off the rails.
122	* RealWomenDontWearDresses: {{Discussed\|Trope}} in "Paris":
123	-->''Margaret Atwood, she could not stop me\
124	Virginia Woolf, she could not stop me\
125	The truth is I wanted to go\
126	He is all I know, he is all I know...''
127	* ReallyGetsAround: Discussed in "Dance Anthem of The 80's", talking about the promiscuity and sexual liberation of the decade. It eventually gets quite disturbing, where a normally chaste woman is constantly having sex she isn't sure she entirely wants.
128	* RealityBreakingParadox: Discussed in "Daniel Cowman", which states that it should, but it [[NothingIsScarier never does]].
129	-->"On the day that Daniel Cowman stopped existing the world should have ended right then and there, precisely 4:15, when he stopped existing, the world should have ended, how could it go on, how could it go on, when I don't exist, when I don't exist?"
130	* RepurposedPopSong: Microsoft used her song "Us" to promote one of their projects, despite the fact that it's partially about the fall of the Soviet Union and [[LyricalDissonance contains such lines as "We're living in a den of thieves" and "It's contagious"]]. Was the "we are a crumbling EvilEmpire" vibe really what Microsoft was going for?
131	* ShoutOut: To Music/TomWaits in "Prisoners" (compare it to his song "9th & Hennipen" from ''Music/RainDogs''), Music/PattiSmith in "Poor Little Rich Boy" with the repeated "so goddamn young", Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi," and about a hundred literary references, from Andersen to Margaret Atwood to Creator/VirginiaWoolf to Edith Wharton's ''Ethan Fromm.'' A darker, more ambiguous one is to the famous antisemitic poet Ezra Pound in a song named "Pound of Flesh". She is the Umberto Eco of pianists.
132	* SingerNamedrop:
133	** In "The Flowers":
134	--->''The papers around me are piling and twisting\
135	'''Regina''' the paperback mummy, what then?''
136	** Also in "Pavlov's Daughter":
137	--->''The gravediggers getting stuck in the machine\
138	Picking getting slim, slimmer\
139	I hear them say my name\
140	'''Regina, Regina, Regina'''''
141	* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: The plot of the "Fidelity" video.
142	* SingingSimlish: She often uses vocal exercises such as lip buzzing as part of her songs.
143	* SomethingBlues: "2.99¢ Blues", "One String Blues"
144	* SongOfSongTitles: "On the Radio" references Music/GunsNRoses' "November Rain", and "Edit" namechecks Music/TheBeatles' "Dr. Robert" and Music/PaulMcCartney's "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey".
145	* StealthPun: Prone to these -- even {{Visual Pun}}s, [[http://www.last.fm/music/Regina+Spektor/+images/28335279 such as the boa boa.]]
146	* TheStoner: PlayedForLaughs in "That Time", and PlayedForDrama sometimes.
147	* SuperDrowningSkills: Unless you're destined to hang, [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext used in a metaphor involving heroin]].
148	* SurprisinglyCreepyMoment: People who listen to her "main" musical output will probably be very surprised when listening to her side work, especially "Songs". For reference, compare the dark and calm "Edit" with the peppy and upbeat "Ne Me Quitte Pas".
149	* TakeThat:
150	** "Ink Stains" is a big Take That to Holocaust deniers.
151	** "Pound of Flesh" is arguably a Take That to the famous poet, [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespearean critic]], [[BreadEggsMilkSquick and Nazi collaborator]] Ezra Pound. The name of the song originates from Shakespeare's play ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'' that features a stereotypical GreedyJew Shylock who wanted to cut a pound of flesh out of a debtor's body for not paying his debt. During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Ezra Pound used the character of Shylock for the purpose of antisemitic propaganda -- and in the song, [[KarmicTransformation Pound himself appears as a restless ghost who asks for a pound of flesh to cover his bare bones]].
152	* TheSomethingSong: "Hotel Song", "Sailor Song", "Left Hand Song", "Chicken Song".
153	* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: She wears a lot of dresses, bows, and girly hair clips.
154	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Aching to Pupate".
155	* {{Unperson}}: "Daniel Cowman", though he seems quite happy to not exist. Or at least, heroin boy does.
156	* QuirkyCurls
157	* UncertifiedExpert: "Older and Taller" is about an older person nearing retirement, who's hiring their own replacements, but the lyrics also clarify:
158	-->''All the lies on your resume,\
159	Have become the truth by now,\
160	And the things that you never did,\
161	Have become your youth, somehow,\
162	You know everything by now.''
163	* VillainSong: "Long Brown Hair" is told from the point of view of a rapist justifying a rape by [[BlamingTheVictim victim blaming]].
164	-->''Don't tell me what's proper\
165	Anyone can see\
166	I wasn't even her first\
167	So don't blame it on me\
168	She was so pretty,\
169	as pretty as can be.\
170	And I thought, "My god,\
171	Why shouldn't it be me?\
172	Oh, come on this once, God.\
173	Why shouldn't it be me?"''
174	* {{Unperson}}: Not existing means that you don't exist. You can't fly or haunt people; you never died because you don't exist.
175	* VodkaDrunkenski: Depicts herself chugging an unnamed alcoholic beverage in a colonel hat on the cover of ''Soviet Kitsch'' and its promotional images.

Context Music / ReginaSpektor