Genre: Bjork. If you don't know Bjork very well, her sound changes a lot, but on this album you should probably imagine Nine Inch Nails if it were fronted by Obaba from "Nausica of the Valley of the Wind." With just a touch of Rogers and Hammerstein.
Where would I have heard of it: Bjork has a tendency to get more attention for her videos than her music, which seems to be a sad side effect of working with Michele Gondry. Still, she had wide airplay on MTV in the mid 90s and was huge even on the radio in Europe. This was her second solo album after the breakup of Sugarcube, the Anarcho-gothpunk collective she helped found in Iceland and with whom she first toured the world. Also this album is well loved by critics, probably the only thing Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and NME agree on.
Anything of note: This album is a pretty decent intro to Bjork: airy, beautiful vocals punctuated by childish screams and a wide variety of musical influences. This is a woman who broke up her first band, a Riot Grrl punk band, to start a jazz fusion band. She exhibits a cheeky and playful sexuality on the album that probably felt like a bold third wave feminist rebellion after her anarcho-punk background. It certainly is massively endearing, but it ended up getting her in trouble. An obsessed fan filmed an 18 hour video of himself making an acid spraying letter bomb while talking about his obsession with her, his views on the world, and making racist comments about her boyfriend. he ended by covering himself in war paint and shooting himself. After this event Bjork began to distance herself from the cuteness portrayed here.
Is it good: My first listen, several years ago, was a bit rough but when I listened to it recently I was blown away. This is overall a positive album, despite the thudding industrial background music. The variety of influences is fascinating and the songs are really enjoyable, full of pop hooks and amazing vocals. really just amazing. Bjork is another figure whose work was familiar but whom I had not fully dug into. I now have a lot of albums to buy.
No comments:
Post a Comment