Rank Bjork's Albums

I can't! But I'll listen to it anyway.

Check out "Earth Intruders", "Declare Independence", "Innocence" and "Wanderlust" on Youtube; if you dig those, the album is worth getting.

Wanderlust video is awesome, btw. Probably my favorite of hers... she chooses her video directors even better than her producers.

She is some sort of countercultural Madonna in a sense that she functions more as a sort of art director than as an actual artist.

if you get only one song from Selmasongs, make it this one:

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

Anyway my ranking:

Vespertine - Coccoon
Post - Hyperballad
Homogenic - Unravel
Debut - Come to Me
Medulla - Desired Constellation
Selmasongs - Scatterheart
Drawing Restraint - Storm
Volta - I See Who You Are

Wanderlust video is awesome, btw. Probably my favorite of hers... she chooses her video directors even better than her producers.

She is some sort of countercultural Madonna in a sense that she functions more as a sort of art director than as an actual artist.

This doesn't really make sense to me... I'm sure most of the the time she has a vision of what she wants to do, and picks her collaborators accordingly (as does Madonna). In music, unless you're a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar or electronic music producer, you always have to find other people to work with you, but that doesn't make you less of an artist. "Art director" would imply someone who only finds those other people but isn't involved in the creative process itself, which I doubt is the case with Björk (or Madonna).

Does anybody have a point-of-view about her actual debut solo album, "Bjork" ?

I don't think it's ever been reissued except as a bootleg. And TBH I'm not particularly interested in what she sounded like when she was 11.

Well, she struck me as someone that was somewhat precocious, musically.

I wondered if what she made then had any bearing on what she produces latterly.

(I did see a CD a few years ago, but wasn't fussed about getting one)

"Bjork cannot be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

In Fopp, £5 gets you "Debut", the two-sided CD/DVD version...

homogenic >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Crystalline" -> http://disconaivete.com/post/6899643048

sounds really dated/boring

the end is a bit Venetian Snares, if you got that far

yeah that's why I said it sounds dated

Oh, ok. I thought so too, btw.

homogenic
post
vespertine
debut
selmasongs
volta*
medulla

*I should note that I never really spent that much time w/ this & acknowledge that my opinions of other björk albums has adjusted over time w/ repeated listening

1. homogenic
2. debut
3-z. bad albums with good singles

I do quite like the new Björk single. That the ending is reminiscent of Venetian Snares or Squarepusher doesn't really matter to me. I like the how it's paced and builds up to it's finale. Nothing shocking, but it's still Björk. Just love hearing her voice again, a-new, I guess.

What I can't get too enthusiastic about is that the new album will feature apps for every song. But then I'm one of those lol people who doesn't have a smart-phone. Even if I did, I don't think I'd drool over that.

i have a smart phone (not an iphone) and i couldn't care less about apps - any, including björk's - and making it the hook of the project makes me instantly bored

the song is...not awful? idk yet.

Instantly bored, that's the phrasing I was after.

I don't know if it's the hook of the whole project. I think one can avoid it by just buying the cd or mp3's? That's what I am aiming for at least.

The new song indeed is not awful. But I do miss hearing it in its "album habitat". With Björk songs tend to make so much more sense as part of an album. Never thought of her as a 'singles'-artist (despite knowing she will probably disagree, what with all the single box sets and all).

Bjork is a singles artist, no question.

I can't even begin to comprehend any of these rankings. How could anyone possibly hold up Homogenic above All Else when it contains such duds as "All Neon Like", "Five Years", "All Is Full Of Love", is beyond me.

How anyone can condemn Medulla to the depths of hell when it contains two of her best songs ("Oceania", "Who Is It"), and many other essentials.

Even then, a greatest hits single comp wouldn't be tolerable any more than it would be of Sparks, Kate Bush, Bowie or any other artist who vacillates from impetus to impetus so wholly that the entire package feels like a science experiment.

Your last argument is exactly why ~ for me ~ Björk is an albums artist, as she has been for me since Debut. Every new album means a new realm, the disclosure of a new, exciting, before unknown universe. Which is why I can't wait to hear the new song in that richer context, to see how it connects and makes love to the other songs.

(I'd struggle ranking the albums. I am only completely sure that Vespertine is my favourite Björk album, by far, for it's coherence, it's intimacy and bare-naked honesty)

I have a smart phone and don't really care but I like it when musicians experiment with presentation.

such duds as "All Neon Like", "All Is Full Of Love"

gtfo

I have a smartphone and I am app-crazy and would totally buy all the Bjork ones... if they weren't iPad exclusive.

I respect your viewpoint but feel differently. Perhaps what I mean is that she's not a singles artist, but one who's work bears considerable editing on the part of the listener. i.e. I immensely prefer live versions of certain songs, cherry-picked remixes and acoustic versions over studio recordings, videos over audio, and so forth. Ranking her albums full-stop seems to be kind of strange, in the same way that I can't rank Bowie albums without massive caveats.

For example, I feel that Volta is her strongest overal "LP" since Post. I felt that it got off the wrong foot by presenting us with "Earth Intruders" and "Declare Independence"-- which is one of the most insulting, classist, shitty things I've ever heard-- but is otherwise a gorgeously constructed, composed and produced record. It doesn't have a "Joga" to appeal to the casuals but I think it's a better record overall than Homogenic in my humble opinion

gtfo

No, you just have to trust it

Despite liking much of Vespertine, I haven't loved a Bjork album since Homogenic. She's like Yoko in that she requires a mitigating sensibility to smother her most outlandish musical fancies.

i think of björk as an albums artist too, but at the same time i think her singles choices have been very judicious in that she's been canny about which tracks work removed from their context (or in enabling them to work removed from their context through videos etc) - every one of her lead singles so far has at least been a striking and singular introduction to a new project (even if the project itself turns out to be disappointing, like volta), and it's that factor i think is missing here. like this could be a random björk offcut or one-off charity single that no one cares about. maybe it will grow on me though!

also, as much as björk's singles can work in isolation, they def don't work all smushed up with each other on a hits compilation.

"All Neon Like" is beautiful, Owen wth.

"all neon like "is certainly better than this new one, which a few listens later still just sounds like something she found lying around from any point in the past decade

i understand that the album doesn't depend on the apps and whatnot but it's def a major angle that she's playing up

... I love this?

(Yeah, I really like it, too. It's hitting all my Iddems nostalgia buttons.)

I'm hearing the bass now I'm using my good headphones - too deep for the regular earphones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvMZx2mf46E

An annoying song on an otherwise brilliant album. I Miss You, that is.

the last 30 seconds or so of "5 Years" is maybe my favorite thing she's done.

when i first heard homogenic i was in high school marching band and we had a metronome that emitted a tone similar to the one that carries "5 years." this could be the intended effect and the tone itself could be universal among all metronomes but it was a cool connection to make in high school, felt like i had decoded something.

You can't handle love
Baby
You can't handle love
It's up the ass
You can't handle

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

this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> original

(and I call myself a Björk fan)

But then I also have Omar's three cd's, so um whatever.

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff399/d3v1ns/surrounded__01.jpg

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff399/d3v1ns/surrounded__06.jpg

How could anyone possibly hold up Homogenic above All Else when it contains such duds as "All Neon Like", "Five Years", "All Is Full Of Love", is beyond me.

Jesus.

Yes, how could we dare hold it above others when it has three of her best songs on it! How ridiculous of us!

I've inexplicably never listened to Selmasongs, but if you're going to include soundtrack work, you have to include the Drawing Restraint 9 one, imo.

I think of Bjork more as a time-period artist than a singles or album artist. Most of the influences/musical arrangements tend to be related to albums, but the selection of songs that happen on tour and the arrangements that are done vary so much due to the makeup of the instrumentalists.

fwiw I really like "All Neon Like" and "I Miss You"

I'm happy to see people didn't criminally underrate Vespertine.