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

the empty space on that record is so consuming, which makes the instrumentation and especially her voice perpetually feel like they're willfully exerting themselves

also i love the anohni feature

Utopia is still totally impenetrable to me, the first two and last two tracks are the only ones I can get remotely into but they still feel very meandering

oh wait but “arisen my senses” is amazing. it’s like björk’s sade song

I know it's a new fan fave, and I keep waiting for it to open up for me, but it just hasn't.

Ballot sent! Was definitely in danger of overthinking it if I took any longer...

I really love the consistency and the progression of her album covers. All with her face and all without words.

https://i.imgur.com/T52DavH.jpg

Medulla does have the title on it actually - the necklace. I think Post, Vespertine and Biophilia have my favourite covers

Ha weird

I never knew what the Biophilia cover looked like until this moment

How many ballots so far, you ask? Eight, the answer.

Don't make me wait 5 years!

hey I got a whole week, I haven't even started listening!

Same as Sleeve! You'll probably get mine a minute before (or after) the deadline, as per usual.

i'll send mine now! i was gonna try to do remixes but there's just too much!

i'll definitely have one as well, just deciding on the order!

I am 20 tracks right now without delving into the post-millennial era (where my relationship with Björk gets iffy).

Think I should send in my ballot too. I wanted to relisten to stuff I'm less familiar with but I think no matter how many listens I give Biophilia, nothing on there is ever gonna click with me. Did find a few new excellent B-sides in researching for this poll though

"oceania" is like the patient zero of björk videos where she just wears weird shit on her face/head in roomfuls of cgi

I like "Earth Intruders"!

(apropos of nothing except some nay-saying above)

"Earth Intruders" is B+ Bjork, to use an Alfred-ism

also as mentioned earth intruders liberally cribs a section of wendy carlos 'c'est afrique'

utopia is a great record. it's one you can live in, staunchly enviornmental/atmospheric.

I love environmental/atmospheric records. But for some reason it's the almost-song-but-not-ness of 'Utopia' that keeps me outside looking in. It could portentially be amazing if Bjork wanted to do instrumental-textural-ambient-etc. records, though her voice would be missed. But when she sings without meter and melody, with sort of auto-Bjork-isms that hint at previous melodies without cohering into melody--it just fundamentally fruatrates me. I feel like the track she did for the closong credits of 'Being John Malkovic' presaged that strand that has made up half her work post-Medulla.

^I definitely can see this point of view. It is sort of an environmental/atmospheric record, but not quite. I think it functions as mood music for me - my favorite kind of music! Every time I listen it feels slightly different

just read Ross's post, I guess what I meant in mine by 'environmental/atmospheric' was more 'ambient', but I like his description.

third attempt with utopia and "arisen my senses" is going on my ballot, it makes me believe i have synesthesia

successive blushes each a different color

it really is a beautiful introduction

first track on utopia barges out the gate, big and bold, love it.

tabula rasa almost brings me to tears

cheers to Dan

oh wow soundslike the track from BJM amphibian is seriously fucking amazing. i hate to say the weakest link on her new records is her voice, ever dove-tailing into the ether, rarely to coalesce into some meaningful melody.

“amphibian” is maybe the best björk song

Holy tuck is it good

hey I got a whole week, I haven't even started listening!

― sleeve, Friday, April 20, 2018 9:21 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same, fam

Now "Future Forever" insists on reminding me of its loveliness just to make things difficult. There are far too many casually excellent Björk songs. I have to confess that while I have most of the records on hand and am pro-Björk in principle, I wasn't initially sure I could name 30 tracks I really truly care about at this stage. Boy is my face red!

every time i'm about to give up on utopia "tabula rasa" starts and i'm mesmerized until the end. "saint" and "future forever" in particular

ballot sent

lmao i want to change things already, is it possible to resubmit

i am finally in the right mood for vespertine! and it is the best album in the world

Absolutely accepting revisions until the poll closes. Especially if they involve additions of “Its Not Up To You.”

hmmmmmmMMMMM

it's great how i'm obsessed with biophilia now

i already liked vespertine quite a bit before this poll, but it's risen up into my top tier, now. Hidden Place through Aurora is such a sustained, strong start to an album, it's ridiculous.

“An echo, a stain” is a gear shift, but it too is an astonishment.

it is a perfect album start to finish

relistening for the first time in a while, i honestly can't tell if the chorus melody of "unison" is interpolating something or just sounds so classic that i forgot it came from a bjork song

not that bjork doesn't have classic melodies but like, in the "this has been around for centuries" kinda way

Vespertine feels like a pivot moment for me, you can see both everything she has done up to that point and everything she will do afterwards - although of course you could also make a case for 'Homogenic' or 'Medulla' in that regard.

IIRC "Sun In My Mouth" is the first time a song on one of her albums feels really unstructured (rather than apparently so but not - e.g. "Headphones" or "All Is Full Of Love").

Without checking, I get the sense that every album thereafter devoted a larger and larger proportion to that approach, although arguably Utopia turns the corner on that. (this is not to say the albums necessarily get worse and worse - i.e. the worst songs on Volta are certainly "structured").

I dunno, "Sun in my Mouth" feels pretty solid to me.

Compared to much of what follows, sure.

I get the point, it doesn’t seem like there is single repeated melodic phrase on Sun in my Mouth.

every track on Vespertine feels like a classic, it really is an amazing album

Hey brad, Tabula rasa is great

Like something off the score of Hitchcock’s vertigo

disarming

Tabula Rasa is definitely one of the best Bjork songs