I agree with Joshua Love on just one point made in his recent Pitchfork annihilation of Regina Spektor’s album “Far.” The dolphin noises are funny the first time around, and a touch annoying every time after that.
And that’s the lone olive branch on this tree, I’m afraid.
Love’s diatribe reads more like an attack on Spektor’s character than an objective record review. At times it’s easy to imagine his article is a half-baked attempt at revenge after being abruptly dumped by Spektor herself, perhaps for someone in a band instead of critic.
His most often leaned-upon crutch is the ridiculous notion that Regina’s age (a young 29 years) should require she abandon her personal style of musical expression, quirkiness and all. Love is a seasoned enough critic (frequently appearing on both Pitchfork and Stylus) to know better than to harp on her use of non-words like “Eet.” I need only mention “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da”, or any of Sigur Ross’s hybrid Icelandic / English / complete nonsense vocalizations, to jog the memory of hundreds of other subsequent recordings that are both celebrated and chalk-full of babble. I can only assume Love has not yet experienced the entire foundation of rock music built throughout the 1950’s, which as frequently employed wops and whoops and sha-na-nas as it did the Queen’s English.
He wrongfully assumes that Spektor’s “vocal curlicues or verbal flights of fancy” are interjections to the song, rather than intended paths of the songs themselves. While he studied her bio long enough to cite the success of her previous three studio releases, all evolutions of her unique interpretation of pop music, he seems more like a lifelong Chevy driver in his first week of driving a Fiat than someone who has dedicated his life to the sport of motoring.
The biggest weakness in Love’s assessment of “Far” is his own need to dabble in psychology, gracing us with Jack Handy zingers like, “God knows being quirky doesn’t mean you have an interesting personality.” If ever there was a verbal flight of fancy, this reviewer’s persistent need to draw a line in the sand between his Pleasantville black-and-white and her Technicolor surely takes the prize.
It’s funny, too, that Love’s own life inexperience (or simple rejection of the notion of experiencing) leads him to the conclusion that crisis, in and of itself, can be boilerplate. As if all wars, serial killings, deaths by starvation and infectious disease, infidelities, and kidnappings should be mourned at one generic memorial, their perpetrators tried under common evidence, and our own grief a singular and instantly forgotten process. Love’s own oversight of this commentary on disposable spirituality and the general cruelties of life is a much purer reflection of naiveté than any track on “Far.” I must be one gun-to-the-head closer to the storyline than Love, it seems.
Love makes consulting the textbook to write him a prescription entirely unnecessary. Trade Dostoyevsky for J.K. Rowling here and there, or listen to music without a snifter of brandy and a copy of the Wall Street Journal within arms reach. If I didn’t imagine him in 400 sq. ft. in Brooklyn, or a one-bedroom with a roommate in San Francisco, I’d alternately place him in the conservatory of a wood-paneled Dallas McMansion, or a freshman philosophy course.
I, for one, do hope that, as Love imagines, Taylor Swift is somewhere out there listening to Regina Spektor’s latest release, instead of simply hearing it, as Joshua Love has done for his review. And I hope he never reviews Bjork, for the love of (or laugh at) God.
