Rank Bjork's Albums

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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.

New rank:

Homogenic
Selmasongs
Vespertine
Telegram
Post
Medulla
Volta
Debut
Drawing Restraint 9

for me I think it goes

Homogenic
Medulla
Post
Debut
Volta
Vespertine (never got the love for that one beyond the opener, really)

Eric and I in usual disagreement shocker. Selmasongs dealt the first blow to my fandom.

Homogenic
Post
Debut
Vespertine
Volta

Don't care a whit for the rest.

Whatev, we share #1. That's like Halley's Comet rare.

Post
Post
Homogenic
Debut
Post

And here I was thinking I'd be made to suffer for shitting on "Declare Independence".
The problem w/those tracks off Homogenic-- and even "Immature"-- is that they're the first songs where B embraces this new, meandering style of melody writing that sounds comparatively banal to her earlier stuff.
"All Is Full Of Love" was redeemed by the Plaid remix and the video, but doesn't do anything for me on the album.
To really come clean, when I got that album as a teenager, I pretty much hated the lyrical content, full-stop. "I'm no fucking Buddhist but this is enlightenment", "If you forget my name / you will go astray / like a killer whale / trapped in a bay"-- not B's own lyric but still-- "I dare you to take me on / I dare you to show me your palms", "The riddle gets solved and you push me up to this state of emergency".

Sorry to take aim at a sacred cow here, I'm a big fan, I love Homogenic, but I feel it is just as fallible and speckled as any of her albums and don't get why it gets held up above all else. Maybe I just listened to it too many times.

"Post" is my favourite overall, followed by Debut and Medulla.

Maybe it's because I'm Scandinavian too, but I just prefer Bjork getting urgent to her being cooey cute a la Debut.

xp but... the best part of All Neon Like IS the melody.

I'll admit that I prefer the more straightforward melodies of earlier Bjork stuff on the whole than more meandering compositions, but I've never found the lyrical content objectionable.

though
"All Is Full Of Love" was redeemed by the Plaid remix and the video, but doesn't do anything for me on the album.

is OTM

I'm convinced I'm the only one who prefers the album mix of AIFOL to any of the remixes. To the point I'd watch the music video with the album version cued up.

:(

Wrong Eric H., I prefer it too

According to a press release, Biophilia consists of "a studio album, apps, a new website, custom-made musical instruments, live shows and educational workshops," not to mention a documentary film

And previously reported, Björk is currently in the middle of the first run of Biophilia shows, taking place at the Manchester International Festival in Manchester, England. This is indicative of the way she intends to tour behind the album. Over the next three years, she plans to play six-week residencies in eight cities, all at intimate venues, to audiences of less than 2,000. At these performances, she'll use the apps to perform Biophilia in full twice a week. During her residencies, the venues will also collaborate with local schools to host music-education workshops.

http://pitchfork.com/news/43032-bjork-reveals-full-scope-of-ibiophiliai/ jeez whoa wtf

I just prefer Bjork getting urgent to her being cooey cute a la Debut.

This binary doesn't exist with Bjork -- most of her work is urgent when it's most cute. I'm still fond of Debut because it finds her wrestling, for the last time, with the production du jour and injecting enough personality. It's almost a covers album! But if by cute you mean "The Anchor Song," "Venus as a Boy," "Come to Me" -- man, she's got descendants on every album!

Twin musical Tesla Coils.

Can I just say at this point, I don't care what the album sounds like. Any album featuring musical tesla coils is automatically the best album of all time.

just saw the "Biophilia" concert in Manchester

it was fucking amazing

highly, highly recommended

she plays in the round, with a choir, with lots of custom-built instruments

and voiceover from Sir Richard Attenborough

and she sings her ass off

ayo eric i also prefer the album version of "all is full of love" because it sounds like it's trying to reach us from another room

and then it succeeds

She is actually getting reviews in, like, New Scientist for this.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/07/sparks-fly-at-bjorks-new-show-biophilia.html

This is the first album Bjork has released since I've really gotten into her and I'm p psyched to be able to follow it. Also one of those residencies SHOULD be in NYC, right? Right??? Maybe this will make up for Seefeel cancelling their tour...

the dude who built her new live toys has a blog: http://andycavatorta.com/

homogenic
debut
post
vespertine
---
---
the others

I clicked Stan's link before bed last night, then dreamt I went and saw the show.
In my dream, it was awesome and I started crying almost immediately as soon as she walked on stage.

I definitely rank vespertine at the top but these were tipped by the live versions of the songs from that album in the Volta shows with all the strings rescored for brass. Magic.

my ranking

vespertine - FUCKING AMAZING
homogenic - amazing
medulla - mostly great, a bit hit or miss
selmasongs - very good
post - pretty good, but never got the hype as to why it's one of her best
debut - quite patchy
volta - mostly zzzzzzz

think that's it. i haven't played telegram more than once (cant even remember it) and never heard Drawing Restraint 9

Telegram is a remix collection, based on "Post" (gettit?)

In my drawer here is Debut, a dual sided disc with DVD content. 5.1 mix and a bunch of vids.

VESPERTINE
(big gap)
HOMOGENIC
MEDULLA
POST
VOLTA/SELMA
DEBUT

New one leaked. Wasn't really feeling it at first, but the second half is surprisingly strong.

She keeps repeating that trick in "Crystalline" where the tinkly, xylophone/celeste/harpsichord whimsy gets crashed by industrial beats, but it seems to work better in "Sacrifice" and "Mutual Core."

(I guess that trick sort of dates back to "Hyper-Ballad.")

AAAAHHH I HAVE TO HEAR THIS NOW

as usual, i have no idea which bjork thread to revive. but this is really good writing on bjork, i think: http://thequietus.com/articles/23621-bjork-best-albums

also, since the thread hasn't been revived since 2011, i'm curious how bjork fans rate vulnicura and utopia among her other work.

Homogenic
Vespertine
Post
Vulnicura
Debut
Medulla
Biophilia
Utopia
Volta

i am the worst bjork fan ever, but i have approximately 0% recollection of biophilia

replace but with and

vulnicura took a little while to grow on me - i usually tend to gravitate to her more 'active' material, but vulnicura is great sink-into-able material from front to back, and better than she's done that kind of stuff on any of her earlier records. watched the videos for utopia but haven't gotten around to it yet apart from those

i haven't listened to a few of these completely in a while, and i'm generally pretty amenable to most of what björk does, but (very) rough ranking off the top of my head:
homogenic
vulnicura / debut
post / volta / vespertine / medulla / biophilia

rank em

Homogenic > Vespertine > Telegram > Post > Debut > Medulla > Selmasongs > Utopia > Vulnicura > Volta > Biophilia > Drawing Restraint 9

Vulnicura was a welcome return to form for me when released, it seemed to revisit the harsher distorted beats of Homogenic and was a little more accessible emotionally. Utopia was also a nice surprise, the arrangements are gorgeous on this and it's really a record to live in. Also there's some good melodic vocal hooks, which it seems have become less frequent on recent Bjork albums

also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68qymYgSxCM

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