Friday, June 19, 2009

Regina Spektor's new album, Far

You can listen to the whole thing here.

My opinion on first listen: a big step down from her last two albums. I'm not hearing any songs on the level of "Fidelity," "Better," "Samson," "The Flowers," or "Us." It's not bad, but you can hear her trying too self-consciously to recapture the magic that used to seem to flow effortlessly out of her, like this:

6 comments:

Jason (the commenter) said...

I'm not surprised, she did seem to have a lot of producers for this album, one from Maroon 5 of all places. But I'm going to hold off judgment.

I didn't like her second album at first. It took me a while to get used to it. Sometimes when something you love changes you have to give it a chance to grow on you; to fall in love all over again.

John Althouse Cohen said...

By her second album, I assume you mean Begin to Hope? It's actually her fourth album, just so you know.

John Althouse Cohen said...

But yeah, I know what you mean about holding off judgment until you'll listened to it a few times. But I doubt I'm suddenly going to like this one as much as Begin to Hope.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I completely forget her first two. They weren't available when I first got into her and I never thought much of them so I never purchased them.

What do you think has been good so far this year? All I love so far is the new The Bird and the Bee album.

John Althouse Cohen said...

I know, her first two are pretty obscure...

I have been utterly negligent in keeping up with the music of 2009. I'm too busy trying to catch up with pre-2009 music. The only albums I can remember buying or listening to are the new ones from Regina, St. Vincent, and Camera Obscura. They all smacked of "sophomore slump" (even though only one of them was technically a sophomore effort). Of those three, the best was definitely St. Vincent.

In the last year or two I've been feeling like music as a whole is in a slump. Maybe the '00s indie sound is starting to run its course, and something new needs to take its place.

That said, the upcoming albums I'm most looking forward to are Imogen Heap and Mika (scheduled for August and September respectively).

I hadn't heard The Bird and the Bee before. I'm listening to one song from the new album on MySpace now and liking it -- sounds a lot like Imogen Heap or Kate Havnevik. (Their song "Love Letter to Japan" reminds me of Imogen Heap's "Headlock.") Unfortunately they're not on eMusic, which is where I prefer to buy my music, but they do have the solo album by Inara George (the singer of The Bird and the Bee), so I'll probably get that.

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