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

i love that kind of overnight mindblown experience though, there's nothing like it

Conceptually I can't think of a more daring and overwrought album-- an instrument built for every song!-- sonically it's so diverse and interesting, there's never a wasted moment-- and like, I've always thought that Bjork had been dividing her time between "traditional pop songs" and "chamber music hybridism" for her entire career, and this entire album of successful no-holds-barred 'art song' just really blows my mind that it exists

She literally had simultaneously booked a recording studio, a 3D-film production house, an team to make the app, and people building the instruments-- that album essentially bankrupted her and it was entirely worth it imo

Like if you remove the experience of listening to it from the context of "this woman recorded 'Joga'", let go of your desire for hooks or fun or whatever you got from those early albums, then it is completely, completely insane that it exists

If I were to pick one single post-Vespertine album, I pick Biophilia.

Eric, forgive me if this is a dumb question but are the main poll tracks supposed to be ordered by favourite? That's tough

They don't have to be. If you want to just submit 30 unranked titles, that's fine too.

thanks Eric

Got really excited doing the tracks, here's my 30

Come To Me
Play Dead
Enjoy
Hyper-ballad
Possibly Maybe
Isobel
Immature
My Snare/Nature is Ancient
Pagan Poetry
Undo
Pleasure is all mine
So Broken
Sod Off
Stonemilker
Tabula Rasa
Triumph of the heart
Where is the line
Unison
venus as a boy
wanderlust
who is it
it's in our hands
you've been flirting again
joga
unravel
bachelorette
5 years
hidden place
scary
one day

my pref for possibly maybe is the telegram version

(In general, I think it's bad form to reveal ballots before the results are announced.)

Alright fair enough

I voted but I realized that I too have not given Biophilia due consideration, will definitely give that a listen.

i'm gonna listen to biophilia with fgti's post in the back of my head at some point this week

someone has a list of her b-sides/rarities? i have all the albums (except Medulla for some reasons) but don't know where to turn to get the remaining stuff.

All of my mouth was kissing him
Now, into the air, I am missing him
Is this excess texting a blessing?
Two music nerds obsessing

He reminds me of the love in me
I'm celebrating on a vibrancy
Sending each other MP3s
Falling in love to a song

i'm gonna listen to biophilia with fgti's post in the back of my head at some point this week

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 10 April 2018 21:29 (fifty-six minutes ago)

Ditto. Which reminds me, for the remix side-poll consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vEjKrP6tOs

She tripped me up slightly as we both made our way to the same one-stall unisex loo in a tiny Indian restaurant in West London a coupla years back. She got there first.

Van Horn Street - Wikipedia has a useful page for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_Bj%C3%B6rk

every single underworld remix of "human behavior" is the best thing i've ever heard

I haven't listened to Utopia yet :/ I gotta do that tomorrow

Van Horn Street - Wikipedia has a useful page for this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_recorded_by_Bj%C3%B6rk

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, April 10, 2018 6:50 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fantastic thanks!

Hyperballad is probably my favourite music video ever

I listened through all her B-sides yesterday and Domestica is the real highlight. Sweet Sweet Intuition is pretty good too

i always find "one day" surprisingly narcotic when i hear it. it's easy to forget but it's so good

it's more of a standout album track i guess
but "come to me" is one of the very best tracks on debut. i always thought it would have been an amazing single and it's fun to imagine what the debut-era video would have been like

I just saw the video for Bachelorette for the first time, not impressed with that, smothers an amazing song in half-baked high concept ideas and fluffs the intro too. Typical Gondry. Best video IMO is All Is Full Of Love, now that's how you match song with visuals.

it's fun to imagine what the debut-era video would have been like

definitely. it'll be high on my song ballot

imo, "One Day" -> "Aeroplane" -> "Come To Me" packages together three gorgeous-but-similar-in-tone songs and weakens the impact of them individually

fyi this is a great source for her remixes, grouped by era

http://www.youtube.com/user/BjorkDisography/playlists

b-sides too, it's p comprehensive

oh I also made this which afaict is a comprehensive list of all b-sides thru Vespertine

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlHmB5haapzRYVDJ30_ONRAd1_mrKbUCs

anyone who sleeps on her b-sides is canceled

imo, "One Day" -> "Aeroplane" -> "Come To Me" packages together three gorgeous-but-similar-in-tone songs and weakens the impact of them individually

― nevertheless, he stopped (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, April 11, 2018 5:26 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i disagree this is my favorite sequence in the album

"aeroplane" is so hissing of summer lawns that i can't really think of it as similar in tone. maybe in tempo

i disagree this is my favorite sequence in the album

― flamenco drop (BradNelson),

this ^^^

"Come to Me" was for years my favorite Bjork hyperballad.

When I was thirteen and Bjork was my favourite artist in the world "Come To Me" totally changed my life.

Also I don't really feel like those 3 tunes are terribly similar.

I think the second half of Debut does suffer, at least on initial listens, from being flatter and less whiplash-careening than the first half. It took many many listens for “One Day” and “Come To Me” to clear spaces around themselves. When they did, they became favorites; it just took some time amid the chaos. Which is the context I’ve always interpreted the lyrics to “One Day,” fwiw.

Only discovered by chance the other day just how much the vocals on 'Headphones' sound like 'Earthbeat' from Return Of The Giant Slits.

I'd been a huge fan of the 3rd and final Sugarcubes album, but aside from a coupla tracks i didn't think much of Debut in the end. Saw the '93 tour though, it wasn't too well-attended iirc. Funny enough Oasis did their first ever gig after signing to Creation just a few blocks away at the same time. I had no expectations for Post because ultimately Debut kinda let me down. I was flat out astonished when i heard it. It was one of those albums that seemed to take everybody by surprise; just a total leap up in.. everything! I recall not long after its release, Ed from Radiohead saying they were trying deliberately to rip off Possibly Maybe on one of the songs from The Bends, i forget which. I still have a lot of affection for it, it's equal to Vespertine in my 'faves'

i thought i could organize feelings
how ILMian of me

does anyone know what the story is behind the Howie B mix of All Is Full Of Love being the one to make the album

It's got some lovey songs, but some of the production and arrangements on Debut sound dated in a way that her other 90s output doesn't (eg that horrible synth guitar or whatever it is at the very end of the otherwise wonderful Human Behaviour).

pfft "dated"

I'd like to point out Carcass' bonkers remix of Isobel. Kind of horrible and misfiring, but I'm glad it exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiPMAqEo2gE

does anyone know what the story is behind the Howie B mix of All Is Full Of Love being the one to make the album

Quickest way to start a fight with me in a Bjork thread, btw.

a mostly disintegrated version of that song is the only way to close homogenic imo

i see few agree

I'm just curious, wikipedia says it was swapped in last minute so I'm assuming there's more to the story than that? I'd complet

the album version is good, and works very well as a closer, but the single version is really incredible. after rediscovering the single version today (I'd completely forgotten about it somehow) I'm going to have to see how it compares in context of the album

Yeah I would agree that version works best for the album. But if I want to listen to it as a song in isolation I'll go for the single mix every time.

xpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlWC664ItaU

on the subject of alternate versions, it's very surprising to me that this is what Who Is It came out of.

Honestly, I just don't think the single version matches the song's mise-en-sound as well as the album mix.