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

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!

I love the gameleste sound of biophilia

xp re: the last two albums
those all are all-time, but I think there are several others from those albums that are also great: Mouth Mantra, History of Touches, Family, Atom Dance, Quicksand, Blissing Me, Arisen My Senses, Tabula Rasa, and especially The Saint, and most of all, Future Forever

Karl's list = 3/4 of my selections from the last two albums, plus another from Dan's list.

Will give Biophilia another shot. It's definitely been disadvantaged by being strictly a Spotify thing for me. Been carting around CDs of most of the rest in recent weeks!!!

Mutual Core is the highlight from Biophilia for me. as an album I certainly prefer it to Utopia and Volta at least (maybe Medulla too) but it feels the most like what I would imagine a 'late period Bjork album' would sound like if I hadn't actually listened to any of them - similar sound palette to Vespertine and Homogenic but sparser and songs that aren't as strong. the computer controlled instruments are an interesting concept but in practice they can sound overly rigid?

If you’re having trouble cracking Biophilia id recommend the bastards remix album. Hudson Mohawke remix of virus knocks it out of the park and Herbert’s is solid as usual.

*listens to “cosmogony” twice* you know actually biophilia is fucking awesome

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

Agree with everything here. Biophilia is better than Volta, I'm 100 percent voting for "Virus," and I'm still grappling with the album. Without a doubt my favorite post-Vespertine.

Bjork + MAW + EW&F =

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNq7EetdCAE

Hooray for so many people coming around on Biophilia, an album I ranked above Homogenic not because I'm challopsy but because Biophilia set impossibly high expectations of its creator and she very nearly lived up to all of them

Interestingly enough the lowest point for me on Biophilia is the repetitiousness and "hookiness" of the chorus of "Cosmogony"-- itself a gorgeous song in execution and sentiment-- but just that in an album that avoids obvious points of entry in favour of a more obscurantist compositional approach, "Cosmogony" in the context of the rest of the album sounds saccharine and non-adventurous. The way the choir falls at the end of "Cosmogony" into my favourite part of the record, Dark Matter -> Hollow -> Virus, that fall gives me the impression of Björk lovingly folding up and putting in storage an old method of songwriting before adventuring out into new territory

The way the choir falls at the end of "Cosmogony" into my favourite part of the record, Dark Matter -> Hollow -> Virus, that fall gives me the impression of Björk lovingly folding up and putting in storage an old method of songwriting before adventuring out into new territory

<3

At this point, I may end up slotting 4 or 5 songs from Biophilia.

I am enjoying going through the process of listening to the discography, as generally I will listen to a new Bjork album quite a bit then permanently shelve it by the next year. There's so much good stuff post-Vespertine that I'd completely forgotten about.

I love seeing this belated realisation that Biophilia is actually pretty good, it felt like I was the only one who liked it at the time!

Not sure if I should vote in this since I have this weird thing with Bjork in that I like three of her albums a lot and the rest I don't really care for.

As long as Biophilia is one of them, vote away!

the ilx biophilia thread is extremely depressing

Album that I am coming to realise is probably my favourite: Vespertine
Album that I am coming to realise I don't really like that much: Post

i haven't been in the right mood for vespertine all month, idk why

Yeah I’m not big on post - too inconsistent style wise, prefer telegram - challop perhaps.

Aurora rules and I neglected to vote for it. Thread makes me want to relisten to biophilia which arrived at a time when I cared little about Bjork and the app seemed distracting

prefer telegram - challop perhaps

kinda yeah it is, i think, those aren't even her best remixes from the post era

Killer versions of possibly maybe and cover me tho

the dillinja "cover me" is v good yes

I think of Post vs. Homogenic sort of the same way Stevie Wonder referred to Talking Book vs. Innervisions. The former, in each case, is a collection of great songs that maybe doesn't quite hang together as an album.

Post is good but doesn't really hang together as an album and only Hyperballad really reaches the peaks of Vespertine and Homogenic

i don't think that's true at all

album has "possibly maybe" and "isobel" on it ffs

What you might be missing about "Post" is that you have to put it into the context of her career. When you listen to it now, it might sound scattered, but when it came out, it suggested 11 different and distinct possible future directions for her. Much of the thrill of listening to it was anticipating her next move, hearing so many different possibilities on display

I mean, "Homogenic" was titled as such almost as a reaction to "Post"'s eclecticism. Eclecticism looks good on a Bjork album imo! Vespertine's best moments imo ("Cocoon", "An Echo, A Stain") are the songs that diverge from the album's thesis

i think that's still possible to hear now, or at least that's the vibe i accessed when i put it on immediately after debut xp

singular bjork (debut) becomes multibjork (post) becomes hypercompressed multibjork (homogenic)

fgti is otm but i still prefer the consistency of homogenic or vespertine, then and now

Biophilia is better than Volta

Yep even though it's not represented in what I voted for, this has been my big realization from this thread, and I've enjoyed discovering Biophilia.

Gonna listen to this today (Vespertine b-sides):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whnnJ6WKRA

Debut is also hugely eclectic. I just feel like Post is a few amazing tracks and the rest are not exactly filler, but just not up to the standard of the LPs before and after.

Vespertine and Volta are the LPs I missed at the time (aside from the singles) and now sound wonderful and fresh.

I think Talking Book similarly intended to carry on with Music of My Mind's sense of boundless possibility/eclecticism.

volta was such a huge disappointment. caught the tour and she was on fire though, declare independence was way more of a rave-up live and she was doing cool stuff with tech and kaos pad like devices at the time. wanderlust in my top bjork songs ever tho

Debut begins eclectic, and then starts to sound stylistically monothematic-- I said so upthread-- "The Anchor Song" appears like whaaat? after a run of relaxing-in-a-hotel-lobby songs

I hate "Declare Independence" as much as I hate "My Girls"-- corny individualism masquerading as romance