With the new crop of young female artists, they all seem to have the same look, sound and hook. “Indie” and “hipster” ladies with flower crowns, red lipstick, strange lyrics and raspy soulful voices are the perfect idols for boring teenage girls in the suburbs to look up to. But, one artist has been playing this angle from the very beginning, does it better than all of them put together and rarely gets the credit she deserves — Regina Spektor.
Miss Spektor is an amazingly talented artist who first hit the scene in 2001. She blends her signature love of classical music with hip-hop, rock, alternative and jazz. She is known for her songs in which she simply plays at her piano.
Spektor writes all her songs herself, which is a seriously rare find in the music industry today. This is particularly impressive because of the poetic nature of her lyrics. Each song reads like a piece of art with complicated metaphors and imagery that makes each listen of the song an entirely new experience.
Although she was classically trained and known for her piano skills, Spektor is just as at home beat-boxing, singing a cappella, or simply singing and letting her band do the instrumental work. Her songs range from pieces with soaring harmonies and full orchestras to stripped-down tracks of simply her and her piano.
As a person who has traveled many hours to have the pleasure of seeing her in concert, I can assure you that she is the real deal. She sounds better than she does on her albums—if that’s even possible—and in addition to her music, she seems to be one of the more genuine people in the industry.
So, all of this being said, I have to question the universe as to why she isn’t one of the main contenders in the music industry today. Her commercial fame seems to be limited to being the soundtrack to every breakup or montage in sad independent films and the theme song to the Netflix series Orange is the New Black. The concert I went to had a fairly large turnout, but when I tried to explain who I was going to see to a variety of people, 90 percent of people I spoke with had no clue who I was even talking about.
Sure, she isn’t gyrating on a foam finger or singing about smoking illicit substances, but Spektor is a multi-talented artist with a big heart. I truly think that if a society—or even a subsection of music-lovers— truly valued musical talent and humility over someone’s appearance or their “coolness,” there could be a stark switch in the music industry’s way of doing things. We could hear more from people such as Spektor who take their music seriously and have real talent.
And, perhaps more importantly, I would get to see and hear more of my darling Regina. Everyone wins.
Kristin Salaky is a junior studying journalism and is the culture editor of The Post. Email her at ks574510@ohiou.edu.
