Bjork's new program "Vespertine" Total Victory or Total Failure?

it's also interesting to hear this record at the peaks of valleys of love in your life. the mood is completely changed depending on how you're feeling. it's natural to hear things through the filter of your own emotional state, and some albums can take on a more powerful meaning if the listener is in a certain life state (like yo la tengo's atntiio and depression+divorce).

i don't know wtf i'm talking about but eventually i was trying to argue that vespertine has at least several different distinct emotional/life/sound ties like that, at least for me, and it seems otherworldly and always refreshingly current and relevant for that reason

great post Karl

I hate to say this is the last I really was invested in Bjork. The Royal Opera performance of Vespertine is essential as well.

Vulnicura revived my love in her though

This is probably her best album.

it's also interesting to hear this record at the peaks of valleys of love in your life. the mood is completely changed depending on how you're feeling. it's natural to hear things through the filter of your own emotional state, and some albums can take on a more powerful meaning if the listener is in a certain life state (like yo la tengo's atntiio and depression+divorce).

― Karl Malone, Monday, July 17, 2017 4:09 AM (twelve hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Goddamn right and expressed so eloquently. The album can hit you in a myriad of ways, soundtracking both the peaks and the valleys of love. Thinking about this further I have a hard time coming up with an album, or even a single song, that does this. Take 'Pagan Poetry'. The whole gut-wrenching 'I love him, I love him' sequence is equally applicable to both the euphoria of love as the utter destruction of it all falling to bits. Embracing love with such force and swallowing it whole, opposite the lamenting and hysteria of love that died/is dying. That song alone has accompanied me in both sides of the spectrum.

(fp'd you for saying 'I don't know wtf I'm talking about' bcz, clearly, you do)

Went to re-listen to this. Receipt for my first pack of condoms sitting under the CD tray. Oof.

I think she would be happy about that.

final track on this record is my favorite bjork song of all time. i can remember thinking i didn't like this as much as homogenic at the time but now i v much feel the contemporary consensus. imo homogenic feels like it's always trying to explode where vespertine seems like it's always trying to be quiet. her best record along with medulla (which i like more than most)

Medulla's when her quailty control started slipping - all her records since have been patchy.

I like this album a lot but I never listen to it, whereas I go back to Post and Homogenic (and selected songs from Medulla and Volta) a lot.

I think the original title for Vespertine gives us a nod to why it's so quiet - Domestica

Anyone heard the Vespertine opera, any good? It's now released on CD:

https://www.galileomusic.de/cover/400/oc978.jpg

Funny to see the intital lukewarm reaction to this now ILX certified classic.

that is weird. IMO it's clearly her best album and also the last album of hers I really loved.

I'd agree, except maybe with the 'clearly'.