When Regina Spektor's self-released albums 11:11 and Songs emerged in the early '00s, they didn't make much of a ripple outside of New York's insular "anti-folk" singer-songwriter scene. But after touring and recording with The Strokes in 2003, Spektor suddenly wound up courted by major labels and on "artists to watch" lists. She justified the heightened interest with her 2004 record Soviet Kitsch, a lively collection of minimalist piano romps full of snappy melodies and vivid, witty lyrics. The Russian-born, classically trained musician was snapped up by Sire Records, which re-released Soviet Kitsch and spread the word about Spektor's effortless combination of art and pop, old world and new world. On her fourth album, Begin To Hope, Spektor continues to grow, reaching beyond the conventional troubadour clichés for a set of songs that sounds radio-ready yet subversively puckish. A week before the album's release, Spektor spoke with The A.V. Club about the progression of her sound, her place in New York's music underground, and whether she thinks she has a shot at getting airplay.
The A.V. Club: This new record has a lot more going on sonically than your first three. Why the change?
Regina Spektor: It was the first time I ever had money. [Laughs.] I'd always wanted to work in the studio and experiment with sounds. Things that I'm really influenced by and that I love are like The Beatles and Radiohead, and all those records by bands whose music is really involved. Tom Waits… the list goes on and on. People who, like, it's not just about the songs for them. It's also about building a world for each song and being able to fulfill it. Before, I had to imply a lot of stuff, and now I can fulfill it.
AVC: So if you had your way five years ago, you would've been making records like this?
RS: Right, I would. Except that I think it's kind of almost good that I couldn't, because I had all this time to just be listening. I'm so behind on pop culture that I was just listening and learning, and learning and listening. It's like my piano teacher would always say: "Whenever the student is ready, a teacher appears." It was good that right when I thought I really wanted to make a record like this, I was able to work with [producer] David [Kahne] and have a label supporting me.
AVC: Was there anything in your experiments with style and sound that just didn't work?
RS: Oh my God, yeah. We played so much with sounds and building stuff, and if it really sucked, we'd scrap it and start anew. I'm very attached nostalgically to places or records that I love, but I'm really not nostalgic or precious about my own stuff. So it's really easy for me to just wake up the next morning with something and be like, "Nope, I hate it."
AVC: What if you're wrong? What if you throw away the best version of the song?
RS: Well, that's what a lot of people say sometimes. But luckily, it's my music. [Laughs.] You can take people's advice, but in the end, you have to be really truthful with yourself and know if you like it or you don't.
The new version of "Samson" [on Begin To Hope] was really hard. I wanted to do a new version because I hadn't realized how slow the one on Songs was. All of the songs on Songs were one take each, almost for archiving purposes. I had like 28 of those, and then I narrowed it down to 12 and slapped on a cover and put it out as Songs. And then I never listened to it again. But "Samson," which is the first track on Songs—a lot of people really cared for it. They were requesting it at shows, and I loved playing it, but I didn't have it on a record that was going to get promoted by a record label. I self-released Songs, so it's not in stores or anything like that. But I went back and listened to it again, and it was so horrible. I couldn't believe that people listened to it and liked it. It was driving me crazy that it existed, and I wanted to obliterate it and replace it.
So we were recording, and I recorded like, I swear, I don't know, 70 versions. And none of them were exactly right. But there was this one that everybody at the record label loved, and David loved. And then two weeks after we mastered the record, I called up David at midnight and was like, "I know you're going to hate me, but we need to re-record 'Samson.' It's the wrong version, I just can't live with it." And then I called my label and told them the same thing. And they were like, "This is like that movie The Conversation. You're going to systematically destroy your whole record." Because I have that potential. When I was watching that movie, it hit close to home. I've done that kind of stuff in records, where you start going back and you want to just redo everything, destroy everything, because you think it all sucks and you can do it better.
But I really did feel that it wasn't the right "Samson." I kept saying, "Please, just one more day. I know this is crazy. You have deadlines. But this is my record, and if it's not going to be how I want it, then it's not going to be on the record." And they were like, "Okay, you can try one more time." And then I got it how I wanted it. It's exactly how I wanted it. And some people wouldn't even hear the difference. Or some people will like the other one better. But I have it how I want it.
AVC: The version on Begin To Hope is pretty unadorned, a lot like the one on Songs. Was that what you struggled with? Whether to go back to the simpler sound?
RS: No, it wasn't the sound. It was arranged exactly the same way. It was my performance I didn't like.
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