Tonya
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Regina Spektor should be mentioned in the Bible!
I do believe this CD has once again proven that Regina is amazing. This album has so much depth, it's incredible. The best part is that it's just her and her piano, nothing more. No effects or other musicians getting their greedy little hands on her magic, and every song still seems full and complete. What else can I say? Nothing, is what.
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M.J. Savastano
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Honest, raw regina
Songs displays not only Ms. Spektor's amazing vocal abilities (one take for each song, anyone?) but also her affinity for finding true, honest emotion in each word, each note, each syllable. When listening, one feels as if one is listening to Regina tell her deepest, darkest secrets in such a way that woos and beguiles the listener. Pared down to their simplest forms, these songs all evoke something--whether it be anger, joy, or sorrow. Finding this album wasn't easy, but it was certainly worth the search.
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Michael Moricz
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One of the single most haunting CDs I own
For me, SONGS is still the most satisfying single release so far to come from the eccentrically fertile mind of Regina Spektor (the British "Gravediggers" compilation is probably second place). All her greatest strengths are on display song after song in this collection, and there is a great deal of variety given that the entire album is just one woman sitting at the piano and singing, with no overdubs and no production gimmickry. ---
She opens with two back-to-back songs based on historical characters ("Samson" and "Oedipus") which set the tone for us to realize that very few of her songs are actually overtly in her own voice or persona. She likes to create elaborate miniatures from the perspectives of various individuals. ---
A few of her most hauntingly beautiful songs are in this collection (Samson, Lulliby, the whimsical Reading Time With Pickle) as well as examples of her accustomed fearless quirkiness (with the Pickle song and the audacious "Daniel Cowman" with its Bert Kaempfert overlay the most eccentric). There is an acapella track (the charming Aching to Pupate) and darker, more edgy material (Prisoners or Lacrimosa). Her jazzier side is represented by "Lounge," though this song is not her best foray into that aspect of her writing. ---
Each song is fascinating in its own way, and there are no two songs which occupy the same world, stylistically, harmonically or in terms of image. She is a natural poet, offbeat but sure of herself. She repeats phrases in her lyrics a lot, but it always seems intentional, and feels as though it represents a kind of variation that builds the tension of the song. ---
Her deep classical roots make her a persuasively expressive pianist, and the fluidity of tempo, the total lack of commercial compromises in the construction of the the material and the chamber-music like approach all bring her songs somehow closer to "art song" or performance art than pop music, especially on this unusual and rewarding CD. ---
What's most refreshing is how she doesn't actually sound like anyone else. She's odd, yes, but she is fully and triumphantly herself, and there is a genuine aesthetic at work here. Her lineage seems to connect back more to people like Leonard Cohen, Laura Nyro or Joni Mitchell than to the contemporaries people seem to want to compare her to. And on this CD, with its simplicity of texture, you can concentrate on the intensity of the material and her performance of it. ---
This is one of a very small handful of CDs that I can put on from the beginning and listen through to the end without skipping anything. She's not for everyone, I realize, but she's uncompromisingly good on her own terms. She's a true artist, with both an innate gift and a craft that's uniquely hers. In my opinion, there's no more persuasive a collection of songs of hers than this one. It's hardly her best-known CD (far from it), but it shows Regina at her best from one end of the CD to the other.
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