"Fidelity" is a song by Russian/American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor, released as the second single from her fourth album Begin to Hope. The song marked Spektor's first Billboard 100 entry and is her most successful track to date. Despite a release date of September 25 (its popular music video was released even earlier), the song did not hit the charts until December. The song was released in the UK as a two-part single on March 12, 2007.

Spektor wrote the song while watching the movie High Fidelity, which is based on a book by Nick Hornby.

In 2009, the song was used with permission as accompaniment to the video, "Don't divorce us", released by the Courage Campaign against Proposition 8.^[1] The video was viewed over 500,000 times in a week.^[2] The single was certified gold by the RIAA for sales of 500,000 copies.^[3] and single released from her album Begin to Hope which was her most successful single in United States.

Music video[link]

It is directed by Marc Webb. The video features Spektor in a black and white dress in an abstract environment enjoying tea alone. The room and decor are also black and white. As the video progresses, an empty suit is shown, which Spektor converses with as though it were a real companion. Near the end of the video, Spektor drops a heart pendant on the ground, revealing colored dust. A man (played by Scoot McNairy) appears in the suit, and the two then play with the dust, and join hands as the video ends.

Track listing[link]

UK CD 1

1. "Fidelity"
2. "Music Box"

UK CD 2

1. "Fidelity"
2. "Music Box"
3. "December"
4. "Fidelity" (Enhanced Video)

UK digital download/AUS CD

1. "Fidelity"
2. "Music Box"
3. "December"

Charts[link]

"Fidelity" initially made an appearance on the Billboard Bubbling Under chart at #8 (The equivalent to a #108) on December 6. Two weeks later, Spektor made her first appearance in her career on the Billboard Hot 100 as "Fidelity" entered at #98. It climbed for the following two weeks before disappearing and then reappearing at #58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #36 on the Billboard Hot Digital Songs in early 2007.

Fidelity debuted on the New Zealand RIANZ charts at #16, because digital downloads had been added in the week of its debut.^[4] This song would have achieved a higher placing if digital downloads had been included earlier, as shown by the single's concurrent top ranking at the New Zealand iTunes store.

In 2009, the popularity of Spektor's single "Laughing With" has caused a revival in sales of Fidelity, bringing it to #55 on the Alternative Songs Chart on US iTunes.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Fidelity video on MySpaceTV

Look up fidelity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Palazzo Ducale in Venice: capital # 28 in the porch, featuring Virtues and vices - In fidelitate nulli gero (Fidelity)

Fidelity is the quality of being faithful or loyal. Its original meaning regarded duty to a lord or a king, in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis, meaning "faithful or loyal".

In modern human relationships, the term can refer to sexual monogamy. In western culture this often means adherence to marriage vows, or of promises of exclusivity or monogamy, and an absence of adultery. However, some people do not equate fidelity in personal relationships with sexual or emotional monogamy. (For example, see polyamory and Open marriage.) Often, however, females in Shakespeare are associated with it in a negative sense, such as "She is with little fidelity". For example, Bertram accuses Helena of having "little fidelity" in All's Well That Ends Well.

Fidelity also denotes how accurate a copy is to its source. For example, a worn gramophone record will have a lower fidelity than one in good condition, and a recording made by a low budget record company in the early 20th century is likely to have significantly less audio fidelity than a good modern recording. In the 1950s, the terms "high fidelity" or "hi-fi" were popularized for equipment and recordings which exhibited more accurate sound reproduction. The converse term "lo-fi", doesn't necessarily mean "low fidelity", rather that the production ethic aims for "gritty authenticity" over perfect production. Similarly in electronics, fidelity refers to the correspondence of the output signal to the input signal, rather than sound quality.

In the fields of scientific modelling and simulation, fidelity refers to the degree to which a model or simulation reproduces the state and behaviour of a real world object, feature or condition. Fidelity is therefore a measure of the realism of a model or simulation.^[1] Simulation fidelity has also been described in the past as "degree of similarity".^[2]

The computer age has spawned the term Wi-Fi in reference to certain groups of wireless electronic devices. While the term "Wi-Fi" has erroneously been taken to be an abbreviation of "wireless fidelity", Wi-Fi is in fact a commercial brand owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, and has nothing to do with fidelity as a concept.

In the field of program evaluation, the term fidelity denotes how closely a set of procedures were implemented as they were supposed to have been. For example, it's difficult to draw conclusions from a study about formative assessment in school classrooms if the teachers are not able or willing to follow the procedures they received in training.^[3]

References[link]

Three singers-a trio-singing a song while accompanied on a lute played by one of the singers. Das Konzert [The Concert] (c. 1490, Lorenzo Costa).

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.

A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).

A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio.^[1] However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)."^[1] The noun "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word to mean "that which is sung" or "a musical composition suggestive of song." The OED also defines the word to mean "a poem" or "the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defence or for attracting mates." ^[2]

Cultural types[link]

Art songs[link]

Art songs are songs created for performance in their own right, usually with piano accompaniment, although they can also have other types of accompaniment such as an orchestra or string quartet, and are always notated. Generally they have an identified author and composer and require voice training for acceptable performance. German-speaking communities use the term art song ("Kunstlied") to distinguish so-called "serious" compositions from folk song ("Volkslied"). The lyrics are often written by a poet or lyricist and the music separately by a composer. Art songs may be more formally complicated than popular or folk songs, though many early Lieder by the likes of Franz Schubert are in simple strophic form. They are often important to national identity.

Art songs feature in many European cultures, including but not limited to: Russian (romancy), German (Lieder), Italian (canzoni), French (mélodies), Scandinavian (sånger), Portuguese (canções), Spanish (canciones). There are also highly regarded British and American art songs in the English language. Cultures outside of Europe that have a classical music tradition, such as India, may or may not feature art songs. The accompaniment of European art songs is considered as an important part of the composition.

The art song of the period in which they originally flowered is often a duet in which the vocalist and accompanist share in interpretive importance. The pieces were most often written to be performed in a home or salon setting, although today the works enjoy popularity as concert pieces. The emergence of poetry during this era was much of what inspired the creation of these pieces by Brahms, Schumann, Schubert and other composers. These composers set poems in their native language. Many works were inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. Another method would be to write new music for each stanza to create a unique form; this was through-composed form known in German as durchkomponiert. A combination of both of these techniques in a single setting was called a modified strophic form. Often romantic art songs sharing similar elements were grouped as a song cycle.^[3]

Folk songs[link]

Folk songs are songs of often anonymous origin (or are public domain) that are transmitted orally. They are frequently a major aspect of national or cultural identity. Art songs often approach the status of folk songs when people forget who the author was. Folk songs are also frequently transmitted non-orally (that is, as sheet music), especially in the modern era. Folk songs exist in almost every culture.

Popular songs[link]

Modern popular songs are typically distributed as recordings and are played on the radio, though all other mass media that have audio capabilities are involved. Their relative popularity is inferred from commercially significant sales of recordings, ratings of stations and networks that play them, and ticket sales for concerts by the recording artists. A popular song can become a modern folk song when members of the public who learn to sing it from the recorded version teach their version to others. Popular songs may be called pop songs for short, although pop songs or pop music may instead be considered a more commercially popular genre of popular music as a whole.

See also[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Song

• Air (music)
• Animal song: bird song, whale song, zoomusicology
• Aria
• Ballad
• Canticle
• Category:Musical forms
• Hymn
• Instrumental
• Lied
• Madrigal (music)
• Song structure (popular music)
• Vocal music
• Theme song
• Poem and song
• Singing

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Marcello Sorce Keller (1984), "The Problem of Classification in Folksong Research: a Short History", Folklore, XCV, no. 1, 100- 104.

Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor playing an electronic piano in 2006
Background information
Native name	Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор
Born	(1980-02-18) February 18, 1980 (age 32) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Origin	New York, U.S.
Genres	Anti-folk, indie rock, baroque pop, blues, pop
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Piano, vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Sire/Warner Bros. Records
Associated acts	Sondre Lerche, Ben Folds, Kill Kenada, the Strokes, Dufus
Website	http://www.reginaspektor.com
Notable instruments
Steinway & Sons piano Epiphone Wildkat guitar Regina Spektor's Autograph

Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (Russian: Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор, IPA: [rʲɪˈɡʲinə ˈspʲɛktər], English: /rɨˈdʒiːnə ˈspɛktər/; born February 18, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.

Early life[link]

Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1980 to a musical Russian Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Soviet college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York.^[1] She has a brother Barry (Bear), who was featured in track 7, "* * *", or "Whisper", of her 2004 album, Soviet Kitsch.

She learned how to play piano by practising on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather.^[2] She was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union.^[1] The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine and a half, during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. Regina had to leave her piano behind.^[3] The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the USSR, but they finally decided to emigrate, due to the ethnic and political discrimination that Jews faced.^[4] Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew, and has since paid tribute to her Russian heritage, quoting the poem February by the Russian poet Boris Pasternak in her song Après Moi, and stating “I’m very connected to the language and the culture.”^[5]

Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the family was admitted to the United States as refugees with the assistance of HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and settled in The Bronx, where Spektor graduated from the SAR Academy, a Jewish day middle school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She then attended high school for two years at the Frisch School, a yeshiva in Paramus, New Jersey, but transferred to a public school, Fair Lawn High School, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where she finished the last two years of her high school education.^[6]

Career[link]

In New York, Spektor studied classical piano with Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, until she was 17; Spektor's father had met Vargas through her husband, violinist Samuel Marder.^[7] Although the family had been unable to bring their piano from Russia, Spektor found a piano on which to play in the basement of her synagogue, and also practiced on tabletops and other hard surfaces.

Spektor was originally interested only in classical music, but later became interested in hip hop, rock and punk as well.^[1] Although she had always made up songs around the house, Spektor first became interested in more formal songwriting during a visit to Israel with the Nesiya Institute in her teenage years when she attracted attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking and realized she had an aptitude for songwriting.^[4]

Following this trip, she was exposed to the work of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which encouraged her belief that she could create her own songs.^[4] She wrote her first a cappella songs around the age of 16 and her first songs for voice and piano when she was nearly 18.^[1]

Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College within three years, graduating with honors in 2001. Around this time, she also worked briefly at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin,^[8] and studied in Tottenham, ( a suburb of London) for one semester ^[9].

She gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, often as a duo with drummer Anders Griffen, and most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe, but also at the Living Room, Tonic, Fez, the Knitting Factory, and CB's Gallery.^{[citation needed]} She also performed at local colleges (such as Sarah Lawrence College) with other musicians, including the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. She sold self-published CDs at her performances during this period: 11:11 (2001) and Songs (2002). In 2004, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers' record label Sire Records to publish and distribute her third album Soviet Kitsch, originally self-released in 2003.

Spektor is married to Jack Dishel, guitarist with the band The Moldy Peaches.^[9]

Style[link]

Regina Spektor in concert, April 2007.

Spektor has said that she has created a great number of songs,^[10] but that she rarely writes any of them down. She has also stated that she never aspired to write songs herself, but songs seem to just flow to her.^[11] Spektor's songs are not usually autobiographical, but rather are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination.^[4][12] Her songs show influences from folk,^[13][14] punk, rock, Jewish,^[12][15] Russian,^[12] hip hop,^[13][16][17] jazz,^[13][16] and classical music.^[12][16] Spektor has said that she works hard to ensure that each of her songs has its own musical style, rather than trying to develop a distinctive style for her music as a whole.^[11]

It doesn't feel natural for me to write some diary type song. I want to write a classic like Yesterday but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head - I can't help it.^[18]

Spektor has a broad vocal range and uses the full extent of it. She also explores a variety of different and somewhat unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips and beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, and also makes use of such unusual musical techniques as using a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano or chair.^[4][19] Part of her style also results from the exaggeration of certain aspects of vocalization, most notably the glottal stop, which is prominent in the single "Fidelity". She also uses a strong New York accent on some words, which she has said is due to her love of New York and its culture.^[1]

Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.^[1][19] Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses of Latin, Russian, French, and other languages in her songs. She also plays with pronunciations, which she said on a NPR interview to be a remnant of her early years when she listened to pop in English without understanding the lyrics. Some of Spektor's lyrics include literary allusions,^[4] such as to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy", The Little Prince in "Baobabs", Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood in "Paris", Ezra Pound and William Shakespeare in "Pound of Flesh", Shakespeare's Hamlet in "The Virgin Queen", Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi", Samson and Delilah in "Samson", and Oedipus the King in "Oedipus", Billie Holiday in "Lady" and Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome in "2.99 cent blues". She alludes to The Beatles and Paul McCartney in the song "Edit". She also used a line from Joni Mitchell's California in her song "The Devil Came to Bethlehem". Recurring themes and topics in Spektor's lyrics include love, death, religion (particularly Biblical and Jewish references), city life (particularly New York references), and certain key phrases have been known to recur in different songs by Spektor, such as references to gravediggers, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the name "Mary Ann". Spektor's use of satire is evident in "Wasteside," which refers to The Twelve Chairs, the classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, and describes the town in which people are born, get their hair cut, and then are sent to the cemetery.

In Spektor's early albums, many of her tracks had a very dry vocal production, with very little reverb or delay added. However, Spektor's more recent albums, particularly Begin to Hope, have put more emphasis into song production and have relied more on traditional pop and rock instruments.^[3] Spektor says the records that most impact her are those of "bands whose music is really involved",^[20] specifically naming The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Radiohead, Tom Waits, and Frédéric Chopin as primary influences.^[20][21]

In her songs, "Eet", "Us" and "Après Moi" the titular sounds are used as the focal point throughout. (In "Dance Anthem of the 80's", the sound "eet" is also used often, on words such as "meat", "street", and "eat").

Performances[link]

Regina Spektor at her first performance in Tel Aviv, Israel on March 3, 2007

Spektor's first nationwide tour was accompanying The Strokes as the opening act on their 2003–2004 Room on Fire tour, during which she and the band performed and recorded "Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men". Kings of Leon were the second opening act on that tour, and they invited Regina to open for them on their own European tour right after The Strokes tour. In June 2005, Spektor was the opening act for the English piano rock band Keane on their North American tour, during which she performed at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, 2005.^[22] During her 2006 headlining tour in support of the Begin to Hope album, Spektor sold out a performance at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and two shows at Town Hall Theater in New York City on September 27 and September 28, 2006.^[23]

Spektor has appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (once), Late Night with Conan O'Brien (three times), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (twice), Jimmy Kimmel Live (twice), Last Call with Carson Daly (five times), Late Show with David Letterman (twice), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (twice), CBS News Sunday Morning, Good Morning America (twice), Australia's Rove Live, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (twice).^[24] On October 10, 2009 she performed on Saturday Night Live.

Since January 2005, Spektor has performed on a bright red Baldwin baby grand piano.^[25] At the present time she uses exclusively Steinway & Sons pianos. She plays a seafoam Epiphone Wildkat archtop hollow-body electric guitar.^[26]

Although she generally only performs original material, Spektor occasionally performs covers. Most famous of these covers were her performances of songs by Leonard Cohen and Madonna, for the 2nd Annual Jewish Music & Heritage Festival at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.^[4] In 2006 and 2007, Spektor embarked on a headlining tour of the U.S. and Europe, selling out numerous clubs and theaters. She covered John Lennon's "Real Love" at the performance arts center of her alma mater, State University of New York at Purchase, on March 28, 2007, at a benefit concert for the Conservatory of Music.^[27] In 2007, Spektor recorded "Real Love" for the Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur CD, which was released in June of that year. She recorded a version of the song for Triple J's Like a Version radio segment which was shown on jTV.

Regina Spektor performing in Brighton on October 26, 2006.

On March 8, 2007, Spektor appeared on the British ITV network's Loose Women, promoting and performing "Fidelity" live, and on April 20, 2007, she performed on the Late Show with David Letterman. On Saturday, April 28, 2007, she appeared at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. On Friday, May 18, 2007, she appeared on BBC1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. On June 16, 2007, she performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival and later performed at the 2007 Lollapalooza on August 4, 2007 and Virgin Festival on August 5, 2007 in Baltimore, Maryland. On September 16, 2007, she performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival and recorded a set for the Austin City Limits TV show the following day. She performed acoustic at the Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline Amphitheatre on October 27 and October 28, 2007.

On November 14, 2007, at her concert at Ryman Auditorium, in Nashville, it was announced that Spektor collapsed during the sound check and was taken to a local emergency room. According to the statement given to the audience, Spektor was fine, but doctors said that she could not perform that night. It was later reported that the cause of the collapse was an inner ear infection which caused intense vertigo. The show was initially rescheduled for December 6, 2007,^[28] but the date was once again rescheduled, and the concert finally occurred on February 29, 2008.^[29] After her initial collapse in Nashville, she was able to perform in concerts at Mountain Stage on November 18, 2007,^{[30][citation needed]} and at Duke University on November 19, 2007.^[31]

In conjunction with the release of her 2009 album Far, Spektor was headlining at Serpentine Sessions, a series of concerts London's Hyde Park on June 29, 2009. Other European performances in 2009 include Glastonbury Festival, Hultsfred Festival, Oxegen 2009, T in the Park, Paradiso (Amsterdam), Latitude Festival, and Rock Werchter. Spektor has invited Brooklyn-based rock band Jupiter One to open concerts on her 2009 North American tour. As a part of that tour, on October 14, 2009 Spektor headlined a concert at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC.

On July 7, 2010, Regina performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland.^[32] Her cellist, Dan Cho, drowned the day before while swimming in Lake Geneva near the Chillon Castle.^[33][34] She was described as distraught, shaken, and in tears and took several breaks to regain her composure.^[35]

Media coverage[link]

Spektor performing at the Hammerstein Ballroom on October 16, 2007

Regina Spektor performing in the West London Synagogue, February 2007.

Since 2005, Spektor's music has been used in various television programs and commercials. In late 2005 "Us" (from Soviet Kitsch) was used in a commercial as part of the What Do You Want To Watch? series for the United Kingdom's British Sky Broadcasting. The advert features a clip from a documentary on skateboarder Danny Way. In the summer of 2006, a clip from "Us" was used for the teaser website for Microsoft's Zune project at ComingZune.com, as well as for a promotional campaign for MtvU. The same track is used by Dutch telecom company KPN in a commercial. "Somedays" was used in a 2005 episode of CSI: NY and "Samson" was used in a 2006 episode of the same series. "On the Radio" was used in an episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy. "Field Below" was used in a 2006 episode titled "The Last Word" of CBS's Criminal Minds. "Fidelity" has also been used in an episode of Grey's Anatomy titled "Six Days, Part 2", Veronica Mars titled "Wichita Linebacker", Brothers & Sisters titled "Sexual Politics", during the end credits of Love and Other Drugs, and in the Brazilian telenovela A Favorita. "Better" is currently being used in a commercial for XM Satellite Radio, an episode of "How I Met Your Mother", and the popular film My Sister's Keeper. Her song "Music Box" is currently being used in a commercial for JC Penney. Spektor also sang the title song "Little Boxes" of Showtime's television series Weeds in the episode "Mile Deep and a Foot Wide" (2006) and her "Ghost of Corporate Future" was used both at the beginning and end of the episode.^[36] On January 21, 2007, she was featured on CBS News Sunday Morning.^[11]

Spektor received increased attention in 2006 when her video for "Fidelity" was viewed over 200,000 times in two days on YouTube. On Sirius Radio's Left of Center channel, her single "Fidelity" was voted by listeners as the #1 song of 2006. Towards the end of 2006, VH1 showcased her as part of their "You Oughta Know: Artists on the Rise" featurettes: they played clips from the "Fidelity" music video and showed parts of an interview with Spektor during commercial breaks on the channel.^[37] Spektor's video for "Fidelity" reached #3 on VH1's Top 20 Countdown.^{[citation needed]}

Peter Gabriel recorded a version of "Après Moi" on his 2010 release Scratch My Back.

In Australia, Spektor's music has rapidly gained popularity in mainstream culture primarily due to Begin to Hope being played on the nation-wide radio station Triple J, where it eventually became a feature album. Prior to Begin to Hope, Spektor had only a small following in Australia in comparison to the US and Europe.

Spektor reached #33 on Blender magazine's top 100 of 2006 and was also listed as one of the "Hottest Women of...Rock!".^[38] "Fidelity" was also used in a 2007 television commercial in New Zealand advertising Yahoo!Xtra, a new partnership between Yahoo! and Telecom's Xtra ISP. Also in 2007, the mobile phone company Vodafone used her lyric, "Come into my world..." from the track, "Hotel Song" on Begin to Hope, in an extensive TV advertising campaign in the UK and Ireland.

On October 1, 2007, Spektor's new video for "Better" was released on VH1 and YouTube, where it was viewed more than 100,000 times within the first 24 hours. "Fidelity" was used in the trailer for the film 27 Dresses, released on October 3, 2007.^[39]

Her song "The Call" appeared prominently in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,^[40] as part of the film's finale sequence. Spektor's song "Better" was used in the movie My Sister's Keeper, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Jodi Picoult. A section of "That Time" was featured in the film In Bruges. Additionally, "Us" and "Hero" are both featured on the soundtrack for the film (500) Days of Summer. Spin magazine profiled Spektor in their July 2009 issue, where she discussed her just-released album Far. The story was released in their digital edition that month, as well.^[41] In August 2009, the song "Two Birds" was used in the 2009 Fall Campaign of the Polish TV station TVN. Also Regina's song "Eet" debuted on the show 90210 in April 2010.

On September 16, 2009, it was announced that Spektor would write the music for the musical Beauty, a modern adaptation of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, which is set to open during the 2011–12 Broadway season.^[42]

In May 2010, Spektor performed for President Obama and his wife Michelle along with hundreds of other guests at the White House reception in honor of Jewish Heritage Month. She sang "Us" and "The Sword & the Pen", receiving a standing ovation begun by Michelle Obama.

The song "Human of the Year" featured prominently in the trailer and first episode of the 2011 HBO series Enlightened.

The song "All the Rowboats" was featured on The CW's Ringer in March 2012.

The Song "Hotel Song" was featured in the opening of the movie Friends with Kids.

Philanthropy[link]

In 2007, she covered John Lennon's "Real Love" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. The following year, she participated in Songs for Tibet, an initiative to support the human rights situation in Tibet and the 14th Dalai Lama. The album was issued on August 5, 2008, via iTunes and on August 19 in music stores around the world.^[43] On January 22, 2009, Spektor performed at the third annual Roe On The Rocks gig at the Bowery Ballroom to raise money for Planned Parenthood New York City.^[44] Also, continuing with her support for Tibet, Regina Spektor played for Tibet House's annual concert at Carnegie Hall on February 26, 2010. Less than one month later, on March 23, 2010, Spektor gave a concert at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City to raise funds for the work of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Also, on April 27, she released a cover of Radiohead's song "No Surprises" with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders to help the earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• 2001: 11:11
• 2002: Songs
• 2004: Soviet Kitsch
• 2006: Begin to Hope
• 2009: Far
• 2012: What We Saw from the Cheap Seats

Singles[link]

Awards[link]

• Begin to Hope – Shortlist Music Prize (nominated)
• Studio8's Female Voice of August 2009 (won)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Regina Spektor

• Official site
• Regina Spektor at the Internet Movie Database
• Regina Spektor at the Open Directory Project
• "Regina Spektor" interview by Noel Murray (from The A.V. Club, 21 June 2006)
• Interview from Soundcheck, WNYC, 13 September 2005
• Interview from All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 28 June 2006
• Strangers Almanac Column on Regina Spektor from Glide Magazine
• NPR - All Songs Considered 7/22/2009 - Regina Spektor: When Every Sound Sings
• NPR All Things Considered 5/24/2012 - Regina Spektor Still Doesn't Write Anything Down

Lisa Bonet (born Lisa Michelle Bonet; November 16, 1967), also known as Lilakoi Moon,^[2] is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Denise Huxtable Kendall on the long-running NBC sitcom The Cosby Show, and originally starring in its spinoff A Different World.^[5]

Early life[link]

Bonet was born in San Francisco, California.^[1][6] Her African American father, Allen Bonet, is an opera singer and Texas native; her Jewish mother, Arlene (née Litman), was a teacher. She has several younger half-siblings.

Bonet attended Reseda High School in Reseda, California, and Celluloid Actor's Studio in North Hollywood where she majored in acting.^[7]

Career[link]

After being in beauty pageants and appearing in guest spots on television series as a child, Bonet landed the role of Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show alongside Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashād. In 1987, she briefly left The Cosby Show to star in the spin-off series A Different World, which focused on Denise Huxtable's life at college. That year, Bonet accepted the role of Epiphany Proudfoot in the movie Angel Heart opposite Mickey Rourke, directed by Alan Parker. In the film, she appeared in a graphic sex scene with Rourke from which scenes had to be censored to ensure an R-rating, though later an uncut X-rated version was released.^[8] After announcing her pregnancy during the run of A Different World, Bonet left the series.^[9] The following year, she returned to The Cosby Show, but was fired in 1991 for "creative differences".^[10][11]

After The Cosby Show, Bonet began to accept jobs on straight-to-video releases and made-for-TV movies. In 1998 she had a supporting role in Enemy of the State with Will Smith. In 2000, she appeared in the movie High Fidelity. In 2003, she played the role of Queenie in Biker Boyz, which reunited her with former co-star Kadeem Hardison of A Different World.^[12]

Bonet also co-starred in the 2006 film Whitepaddy alongside Sherilyn Fenn, Hill Harper, Debra Wilson, Karen Black, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. She resurfaced two years later in the US adaptation of the British television series, Life on Mars.

Personal life[link]

On November 16, 1987, her 20th birthday, she eloped with singer Lenny Kravitz in Las Vegas. Bonet recalled of their relationship:

She gave birth to daughter Zoë Isabella on December 1, 1988.^[14] She and Kravitz separated and eventually divorced in 1993.^{[citation needed]}

In 1992 Bonet legally changed her name to Lilakoi Moon, although she still uses the name Lisa Bonet professionally.^[2] In 2005 she met actor Jason Momoa, and started a relationship. On July 23, 2007, Bonet gave birth to her second child Lola Iolani Momoa, the first of two children with Momoa, an actor noted for his roles in the television shows Baywatch, Stargate Atlantis, the HBO series Game of Thrones and the 2011 Conan the Barbarian remake. Lisa Bonet and Jason Momoa were married on November 15, 2007. On December 15, 2008, they had a son named Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa.^[15]

Filmography[link]

Film

Television

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lisa Bonet at the Internet Movie Database
• Lisa Bonet at AllRovi