POLL Neon Like -- ILM artist poll #88 -- BJÖRK (voting open until April 27, 2018)

so correct

(btw just want to add that i'm really loving this bjork binge for this poll. it's been a while since i've listened to her 4+ hours a day, and her music has helped make a very stressful week so much better than it would be otherwise)

same here. björk is so good and i’m sorry i forgot

i think her work deserves some kind of comprehensive bowiesongs-esque blog

the later bjork albums (like the last two) don't have as many hits per ratio as the earlier ones do, but the peaks are fairly high - tabula rasa (utopia) and stonemilker are up there with his best work,

her * my god

i'm halfway done my top 30!

i managed to cut 100+ songs to 65!

and i still havent cut a single song off of homogenic this is hard

same here. björk is so good and i’m sorry i forgot

i'm right here with both of you. this poll reminded me that she's probably--no, not probably, definitely--top 5 all time for me.

She’s up there with peej for me

one album i'm surprisingly short on is selmasongs. that was my bjork JAM back in the day, i guess just because my car only had a tape deck and selmasongs was on one side, the bends was on the other. so i listened to it roughly a million times. but revisiting it after all this time, i only have "i've seen it all" on my ballot (near the bottom, probably). "new world" used to be so triumphant sounding and amazing to me...i don't know why, but it doesn't inspire the same feeling in me anymore. perhaps because i'm no longer 17 years old

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, April 17, 2018 6:22 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Scatterheart was always my favourite from Selmasongs so I'm hoping I can make room for that on my ballot. As it stands I've got at least one track from each of the studio albums and am seriously considering including Storm from Drawing Restraint 9, that song is really something.

I don't have anything on my list from Volta or Utopia at the moment.

My ballot is 98 percent finalized and somehow has two songs from Utopia on it.

It might not make my ballot, but one song I find really interesting to think about is "Sweet Intuition", in that it makes me imagine a kind of alternate history where her music went down a different path.

For all that Bjork's music grew progressively more abstract over the course of her career, there's actually a trend away from what in my head I'm calling "compression" - like, listen to Homogenic and "Pluto" aside while there are obviously beats there's not much in the way of loops - typically the melodies are these shimmering (frequently string-based) expanses which the beats then underpin (or trample over). And that kind of remains her approach thereafter though if/when I listen to Volta again there might be some exceptions to that.

"Sweet Intuition" meanwhile is all these compressed fidgety interlocking synth loops creating asymmetric rhythms (no surprises it's a Black Dog production), out of which Bjork tries to make a song.

It's much more of an obvious b-side than "Charlene" or "I Go Humble" or "Karvel", but if we all went back to 1995 and you asked me "which of Bjork's most recent tracks sounds like the beginning of her next chapter" I might put forward this track and say "Bjork's next album should be like the abstract far side of Insides' Euphoria."

Selmasongs is the only older album I can't approach without anything like dread; that's where the disappointment first struck.

"Sweet Intuition" is on my ballot.

i've listened to her 4+ hours a day

These admissions amaze me, and I don't mean it in a condescending way – I've never done that with any musician!

"new world" used to be so triumphant sounding and amazing to me...i don't know why, but it doesn't inspire the same feeling in me anymore. perhaps because i'm no longer 17 years old

wow i had the exact same experience as karl here

ts: "overture" vs. "the next to last song" vs. "new world"

^^ actually "the next to last song" is a real rough listen even without the visual so i don't recommend anyone try to take sides there

are you talking about "107 Steps"?

in revisiting Selmasongs for the first time in a decade and a half, I'm with Gavin: "Scatterheart" is the best track. surprisingly I ended up liking "In the Musicals" second most. No need to dread listening, Alfred, it's basically a one-off EP side project--it's not terrible, but it is a bit of a mess

are you talking about "107 Steps"?

i'm not, though "the next to last song" is in the scene immediately after it in the film (it has the same melody as "new world" and "overture")

do NOT listen to it if you haven't seen dancer in the dark

lol the reason I hadn't listened to Selmasongs since 2001 is that I saw and loathed/resented DITD. Anyway, I know what you're talking about now

i loved ditd but i'll never watch it again!

:)

here's an element of ditd that isn't unpleasantly seared into my brain: does someone else sing Thom Yorke's part in the film, do they use him as playback singer, or is that part just not in the film version?

the actor (David Morse) sings it

version of "scatterheart" in the film is also radically different in that multiple characters sing it

karl it's actually peter stormare...

many of the songs/arrangements from the film are so different than the album that they can be separated IMO

My theory on why the newer bjork stuff isn't as memorable as she's deviated so far from melodies for years now that i find the ones i do end up liking are more melodic in nature.

For the sake of the poll, I'll combine votes for, say, "Scatterheart" with "Smith & Wesson."

peter stormare

oh that's right! thanks. it has been a loooong time since i've seen it as well

One of the top five closest times to breaking up with my BF of 18 years was immediately after we watched DITD in the cinema.

haha I can definitely imagine that. Reminds me a bit of when a long-distance girlfriend came for a visit and on our last night together, we went to see Naked without knowing anything about it

o hi thread, I will try to vote in this!

i have never seen ditd (but i do really like selmasongs) -- just never found the right time when i felt like being emotionally destroyed by a movie

I'm not a fan of the film, but it was fun watching some of the more doltish film critics (like Richard Roeper) try to figure out what to do with it at the time.

volta is still kind of a bummer

volta is still my dreadlisten

Truthfully, it has about as songs I like as Medulla, but I rarely ever cue it up and I frequently visit Medulla.

as i recall, volta kind of careens between loud, crunchy arrangements which demand attention (and then let you down) and softer passages, sometimes all in the same song. i usually choose music to suit my mood at the moment, and i'm just never in whatever mood that is.

the ten-years-late timbo collabs are still depressing imo

Yes. As much as I don't personally love the Anohni tracks, they are still evidence of a forward-thinking artist blazing her own trail.

Ballot almost ready to send. 13 tracks from Vespertine/b-sides, several from Biophilia, the rest from the 90s. Voted for almost all the 90s singles.

I’d love to be able to point out some unappreciated obscurity here but instead I just want as many people to vote for Aurora as possible, my number 2. This video doesn’t make the greatest case for it, honestly I have no idea why this was filmed, but I love it anyway.

https://youtu.be/i1LPN8e7ubg

Aurora will definitely be high on my ballot, the highlight of Vespertine for me.

I thought I would be including more of the 90s stuff when I re-listened to those albums

but I'm still drawn to the later denser music – in particular Vespertine, Vulnicura, Utopia

haven't finalized anything yet

"wanderlust" is pretty great tbf

ok, i take it back a little, the middle section of volta ("i see who you are" -> "vertebrae by vertebrae" -> "pneumonia") is pretty good

those three may be my favorites from that album

my mind is still grappling with the rest of biophilia (hot take: actually better than volta!) but i’m 100 percent voting for “virus”

Biophilia remains the only one of the 'main' (post-Sugarcubes non-soundtrack) LPs to be unrepresented in my likely top 30. Part of me feels I should try harder...

I love Crystalline, Virus, Dark Matter, Sacrifice, Hollow, Cosmogony

i think, stonemilker, black lake, and the gate will be my only votes from her last two albums

biophilia works better than the other later lps for me because of how it’s recorded, spare and close and intimate-sounding for the most part

Dan’s list is almost exactly what I voted for!