Regina Spektor on Her New Album, “Home, Before and After”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twenty years ago, Regina Spektor was yet another aspiring musician in New York, lugging around a backpack full of self-produced CDs, and playing at little clubs in the East Village—anywhere that had a piano. But anonymity in Spektor’s case didn’t last long. She toured with the Strokes in 2003, and once she had a record deal, her ambitions grew outside indie music. She moved into a pop vein, writing anthems about love and heartbreak, loneliness and death, belief and doubt. Her 2006 album “Begin to Hope” went gold.

“Home, Before and After,” being released this month, is Spektor’s first new album in six years. She sat down at a grand piano with Amanda Petrusich, who covers music for The New Yorker, playing songs from the record and talking about the role of imagination and playfulness in her songwriting and her vocals. “I think that life pushes you—especially as an adult, and especially when you’re responsible for other little humans—to be present in this logistic[al] sort of way,” she says. “I try as much as possible to integrate fun, because I love fun. And I love beauty. And I love magic. … I will not have anybody take that away.”

Spektor performed “Loveology,” “Becoming All Alone,” and the older “Aprѐs Moi,” accompanying herself on piano. The podcast episode for this segment features a bonus track, “Spacetime Fairytale.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.4	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnik.
0:12.4	Twenty years ago, Regina Spector, who was born in Moscow, was just another aspiring musician
0:18.5	in New York.
0:19.5	She was lugging around a backpack full of self-produced CDs and playing at little clubs in the East
0:25.2	Village anywhere that had a piano, really.
0:28.3	But anonymity in Spector's case, it didn't last long.
0:31.4	She toured with the strokes in 2003, and once she had a record deal of her own, her ambitions
0:37.3	grew well beyond the borders of indie music.
0:50.8	Her album began to hope when gold, and Spector began moving into more of a pop vein, writing
0:56.6	anthems about love and heartbreak, loneliness and death and God, and she even wrote the
1:01.8	theme song to Orange as the New Black.
1:15.9	Spector's songs are powered by years of classical training on the piano, and a voice that often
1:21.2	goes from a whisper to a roar in just a flash.
1:25.4	Her new record is called Home Before and After, and to mark the occasion, the New Yorker's
1:30.4	music critic Amanda Petrusich joined Regina Spector in a living room with a grand piano
1:36.6	to hear some of the new songs.
1:39.6	So Regina, it's been quite a while since we've had a record from you, who's counting,
1:43.9	but 2016 was the last time, and it feels like since that moment, the world has kind of
1:50.0	turned itself inside out a few times.
1:53.0	I'm curious how the last six years have been for you, and I know there's been some performances
1:57.5	and a residency and some kind of one-off recordings, but how have you been spending that time?
	...

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