"Small Bill$"-Regina Spektor
Regina is back!
Boo, you whore! Not that Regina!
It's the return of my favorite Soviet-born, classically-trained, pop pianist -- Regina Spektor -- whose new album (Remember Us To Life) is her first in an American presidential term.
I first fell in love with this blue-eyed, redheaded, Brooklyn-raised expatriate through her quirky but cute compositions "On the Radio" and "Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)."
But aside from said quirky cuteness, she also has an amazing knack of painting colorful images with that special Spector style of poetry... kinda-sorta like fairy tales for grown-ups that seem to lean a little more toward the Grimm than the Hans Christian.
While Regina's personality always comes across as bubbly and bright, I have a theory on how she manages to tap into her inner sinister.
She told Noisey's Kim Taylor Bennett, "I kind of always had that tragedies-looming-around outlook. Just having come from generations of Stalin and World War II... everybody had all these horrible stories that I grew up listening to: People getting taken out and shot or buried in the roads alive -- I sort of didn't grow up (with) Coke-a-Cola, Mickey Mouse..."
Regina -- who just became a mom for the first time -- explained, "I'm at the most happiest time in my life and I'm writing some of the darkest and kind of most sad -- music."
For "Small Bill$," Spektor conveys her fable of a man with major money problems who is being chased and swallowed by debt. The dramatic strings and booming backbeat may match its metaphorical theme, but what makes this track charming is Regina's playful voice and catchy cadence highlighted by a whimsical chorus layered with lots of "la-las."
Now that I really think about it, "Small Bill$" is so Soviet kitsch that it's more Soviet kitsch than Soviet Kitsch was Soviet kitsch.
Yep, being in the red never sounded so much fun!
