Review Summary: The album that revealed Regina to be the master storyteller that she is.
I first heard Soviet Kitsch in the Summer after I graduated high school. During my senior year, I was so completely focused on graduating that I thought about little else. I saw graduation as the end of that malicious entity known as "school," and I never really gave the future a thorough look. I refused to attend
graduation, instead opting to simply walk off the campus on my last day and never look back. What resulted was a lack of real closure to that era of my life, and a Summer totally consumed by contemplation and inner termoil about my future. I was filled with both fear and completely irrational optimism. This is
why Regina Spektor connected with me in such a profound way.
On the whole, Soviet Kitsch is made up of that exact contemplation and worry that envelopes high school graduates. Every track explores some aspect of growing up and coping with a future that never slows down as it makes its way triumphantly towards you. Behind the words is a young woman with so much personality that it's almost overwhelming. Spektor was born in Russia, but her voice on Soviet Kitsch is filled with an urban attitude she no doubt attained from growing up in New York. "You're so young/you so
goddam young" she chants on "Poor Little Rich Boy." Aren't we all.
Kitsch is filled with whimsy and just plain goofiness, but Regina treats her words with care. As nonsensical as they are, they carry weight because of her adamant delivery - in short, Regina never cracks a smile. At
some points, her sass and conviction DEMAND your attention, while at others her voice sounds so genuinely broken and pained that you can't help but feel the same way. The opening track, "Ode To Divorce," alternates between lyrical standards about depression and loss, and the twisted imaginings of a love-sick
teenager:
"I'm inside your mouth now
behind your tonsils
peaking over your molars.
You're talkin' to her now,
you've eaten something minty and
you're making that face that I like..."
The way these words are delivered, though, sounds like what she's saying is painful, as if she's holding onto the last bits of childlike humor she has left as her adult life falls apart.
As soon as "Ode To Divorce" is over, youthful energy takes over. "Poor Little Richboy" features a chair as a percussion instrument. She observes, ridicules almost, a young boy trying to live up to what is expected of him. Following that is "Carbon Monoxide", a strangely moving ballad that's as quirky as it is melancholic. Her voice takes on a soulful rasp as again she desperately clings to her memories of youth, bellowing: "Come on, Daddy!/Come on, Daddy!"
"Us" is the climax of the first half of the album. It perfectly encapsulates the emotions of being young and ambitious. The piano and strings work together to create buildup after buildup, swelling with Regina's ever-endering vocal eccentricities in the chorus. The inclusion of a prominent violin manages not to take away from the stripped-down and personal nature of Kitch, nor does it overstay its welcome, instead blending with the piano and remaining comfortably in the background, enhancing the builds. Towards the end of "Us" comes one of my favorite moments in music: Regina chants "They made a statue of us!/They made a statue of us!", pushed on by the driving force of the piano melody and gradual violin crescendos. It represents an explosion of a youthful optimism that is bursting at the seams nearly all the time when you're 18, gazing at a horizon that before now had seemed too large and too far away to comprehend.
On "Your Honor", Regina sounds unlike anything she's put out since or before this album, yelling more than singing, and bordering on obnoxious (almost as obnoxious as what sounds like a high school garage band playing behind her). This works perfectly with the story the song tells. "Your Honor" represents the struggles of coping with adulthood - with committing to a relationship and understanding the person you've chosen to be with. "Ghost of Corporate Future" continues on this path, narrating the sad life of a businessman who's grown up so thoroughly that he is unable to find any joy in life.
Finally, "Chemo Limo" is the true climax of the album, reaching the peak of melancholy and goofiness at once. Uneasy and eventually heartbreaking, "Limo" is haunted by the feeling that some tragic inevitability is coming. Repeated stoccatto eighth-note piano strokes makes it as suspenseful as it is dreamy. Over the piano, Regina tells the story of a dream in which a doctor tells the narrator that she has cancer and needs to undergo chemo therapy. Without warning, it drastically changes to an aggressively silly chorus, as the narrator refuses to take on the treatment, proclaiming that she'd rather "go out in style." Regina has more attitude here than anywhere on the album, and her rapid-fire delivery is impressive. The song ends with the nameless narrator looking at her children admiringly, seeing herself in them as she gives up on her own life. In a sense, "Chemo Limo" never seems to come to a satisfying close and never fully explains what the meaning behind it is. Such is life and the way it often ends.
"Somedays" is a departure from the lyrical themes of the second half of the album, closing the album reflecting that "some days aren't yours at all/they come and go as if they're someone else's days." "Ode To Divorce" and "Somedays" seem to fit together. The latter seems to be an unnamed narrator reliving a marriage proposal, and the former seems to tell of that same narrator crippled by the depression of losing someone they love to someone else. Both carry a maturity and refinement that simply isn't present anywhere else on the album. Between the two tracks is an album that looks back on a life lived both fondly ("Us") and regrettfully ("Chemo Limo" or "Ghost of Corporate Future"). Perhaps Regina's narrator is telling stories about people growing up and comparing them to her own story, or perhaps it's something more. Soviet Kitsch is clearly a deeply personal work. It's an album that forces you to place your own meaning on it because it refuses to give you any hint about what it's really trying to say. As an 18 year-old trying to choose what path in life to take, I saw it as an ode to youth. As a college student who has chosen his path, I now see it as a reflection on what it means to be human. Soviet Kitsch has grown with me, and both this incredible album and I are better for it.
