Progressive Wednesday

The artsy (and not fartsy) pop of Regina Spektor.

June 9th, 2007 by Matt

A faithful (and I do mean faithful) reader of Progressive Wednesday recently brought Regina Spektor to my attention, and I’ve been “in like” with this singer ever since. Her voice is unusual, but in a great way: it’s baby-doll cute at times, and at others, it’s purely angelic. To be honest, I’m not really sure how she pulls it off, let alone how some stuffy, starched-shirt of a record exec actually had the guts to think Spektor would be able to pull it off commercially, which she has.

Below, you’ll find a video that I oooh and ahhh over ever time I give it a spin. The tune’s called “Fidelity,” and the song breaks the tried-and-true rules of most pop music: 1. It’s instrumentally spare; 2. The chorus is shifting and delightfully unique; 3. It’s not the bridge that leads us to the climax.

And the video? The video plays like they dipped the song into Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art — it’s gloriously quirky, confounding, and explosive. It can be neither easily explained, nor, as is the case with most MTV junk, easily explained away.

For these reasons, and more, I give you “Fidelity.” As the opening words gently command, “Shake it up.”

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Editor’s Note: While researching Spektor, I stumbled on the song “Us.” “Us” is like David Bowie’s “Heroes” mixed with classical music. It is, in a word, lovely.