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

hey eric h, can we do mixed ballots for tracks? i feel pretty confident in my ability to pick 10 favorites but not in my ability to rank all 30 tracks

That's fine. Just indicate which part is ranked and which isn't.

thanks

it's just from the wikipedia entry on vespertine, but i thought this was really interesting:

Björk decided to use instruments whose sound would not be compromised when downloaded from sites such as Napster.[16] She explained:

I use micro-beats, a lot of whispery vocals, which I think sound amazing when they're downloaded because of the secrecy of the medium. The only acoustic instruments I would use would be those that sound good after they've been downloaded, so the harp, the music box, celeste and clavichord. They're plucky sounds. [...] And the strings [...] ended up being more panoramic textures in the background. It's all about being in a little house, on your own. [...] The strings would be like white mountains outside.[16]

i always love to read how artists work within constraints, especially those that are partly self-imposed. she knew that anything she released would be listened to millions of adoring obsessive fans on headphones, an experience she clearly connects with (like on the song ... "headphones"). but she gravitated toward sounds that would also still sound good after being compressed down to a mp3! and not just any mp3, but a typical turn of the millienium mp3, so probably like 96 or 128 kbps. i love it

ok, finally voted! that was a ridiculous ballot. really, most of the top 20 is pretty interchangeable for me. sometimes i'm having a post kind of day, sometimes it's a vespertine kind of day (those are nice). i can't believe a song like "big time sensuality" didn't even make it, but that's how solid her catalog is. <3

Shameful confession: Vespertine still does nothing for me.

*gasp* i'm probably gonna vote Vespertine as my #1 album.

possibly because i've mostly been listening on earbuds (good insight, karl)

eric was right, i should've voted for "it's not up to you"

how do i master
the perfect day

There's still time imo.

the triumph of a heart
the triumph of the heart
a triumph of the heart
a triumph of a heart

Also, I can't say there's a Bjork album that does nothing for me. A couple of them antagonize me, but I'm certainly not neutral on a single one of them.

hope it's not too late to rep for these three remixes, all (as far as I know) only on whitelabels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88HqorPJDWI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoP6Ro_41tI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psr9vd9lGiQ

I have now tallied 14 ballots. Still a lot of people I know who are Bjork fanatics who haven't weighed in yet!

Oh, and here's where I ask if there's someone out there who feels like designing a tile template for the reveal thread?

“Pagan Poetry” isn’t just one of Bjork’s very best songs, it’s also the last time (with the possible exception of the chorus to “Mutual Core”) where I think “no one else could do with this melody what Bjork does”. There are strong melodies later (though fewer than before of course) and there are some amazing vocal runs, but the two don’t tend to be so mutually reinforcing thereafter.

Like, the way she leans into the first word of the chorus so aggressively, like she’s pushing though something painful to get to something beautiful - who else could pull it off? Who would dare try to cover it?

c.f. the “pop” songs on Medulla, where typically Bjork feels like she’s actually backgrounding her lead vocal more than usual even if she’s delivering a memorable chorus line - if not in terms of volume or prominence, then in terms of style and flair - as if dominating the track like she would have previously kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.

Conversely the big vocal moments later on rarely combine with indelible melodies.

Well these Greek guys tried to cover it:

https://youtu.be/DSfXZ5rkCNQ

Just tallied the most idiosyncratic ballot so far. Up to 15.

Hopefully it’ll make up for my bound-to-be-boring one.

great post, tim f

when you talk about her "vocal runs" and "big vocal moments" as something distinct from the melodies, do you mean just in terms of loudness and prominence in the song, or technical virtuosity, or something else?

"Like, the way she leans into the first word of the chorus [of Pagan Poetry] so aggressively, like she’s pushing though something painful to get to something beautiful"

so otm. this ballot was painful to put together. i put pagan poetry below two other vespertine songs! (but how are you going to put any above "Undo"... so agonizing)

Undo is the best, it's true

Pagan Poetry and Undo are my two favorites from Vespertine also. For me it feels like the album comes to a peak with those two.

some days I think Pagan Poetry is the best thing she has ever done

Pagan Poetry and Undo are my two favorites from Vespertine also

i think i agree with this too, but i had a ~moment~ with Unison as i was wrapping up my ballot and ended up putting it above Pagan Poetry as well.

Cocoon my fave by far. Sun In My Mouth is fantastic, too, feels underrated (if that is at all possible for anything on Vespertine)

I still need to sift through the b-sides before I vote. Any pointers? A yt playlist, or a collection of sorts?

stevie d had some good resources:

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

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

― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, April 11, 2018 9:45 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

b-sides too, it's p comprehensive

― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, April 11, 2018 9:47 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― the masseduction of lauryn hill (Stevie D(eux)),

and camaraderie at arms length also had a nice selection, i thought:

Atlantic (from Human Behaviour single)
Glora (from Big Time Sensuality single)
Sweet Intuition (from Army of Me single)
Karvel (from I Miss You single)
I Go Humble (from Isobel single)
Oxygen (Evelyn Glennie featuring Björk)
Sod Off (from Joga single)
Foot Soldier (from Hidden Place single)
Domestica (from Pagan Poetry single)
Batabid (from Pagan Poetry single)
It's In Our Hands (from Greatest Hits)
Trance (from To Lee, With Love, Nick ost)
Náttúra (single, 2008)
Flétta (Antony and the Johnsons featuring Björk)

Ohh blessig u KM <3

no prob! just bumping some posts upthread, they did all the work :)

https://78.media.tumblr.com/53bccd6850c11d881502052c50df9085/tumblr_ojz9wenAM91rpduwho1_500.gif

always include “verandi” in a björk b-side selection imo

*takes note*

"karvel" and "i go humble" are both perfect

homogenic b-sides were sensibly b-sides

(even though they are enjoyable)

There are some real hidden gems among those three Sugarcubes albums. Right now, I'm Hungry is my new jam.

“when you talk about her "vocal runs" and "big vocal moments" as something distinct from the melodies, do you mean just in terms of loudness and prominence in the song, or technical virtuosity, or something else?“

I guess I meant the sense in which the songs act as vehicle for the expression of Bjork’s voice as an instrument for its own ends, rather than (or in addition to) Bjork’s voice being a vehicle for the delivery of the song.

In the context of her earlier work this is most clear in the way Bjork would tend to sing around the melody, filling her songs with all these delightful vocal curlicues - like in “Big Time Sensuality”, it’s difficult to say whether the snippet of singing from about 2:45 to 3:00 is part of the “song” in any sense divorced from Bjork herself, but it’s one of the best moments in the song; those curlicues tending to be the pinnacle of intensity, the moment when the singer’s irrepressible sense of lust or excitement or anger or wonder or sheer intensity would bubble up and kind of spill over or across the confines of song-structure.

As her songwriting has grown less structured, the distinction between song and curlicue has grown murkier - “show me emotional respect, ah-respect, ah-respect” is the most memorable refrain in “Stonemilker” and the kind of moment it’s difficult to imagine another singer infusing with such power, but on a Debut song that would have been a scat around the main refrain rather than the refrain itself.

It’d be interesting to trace out those developments in her songwriting and song performance more carefully - one reason I love “The Modern Things” so much is the sense in which it was the first time one of the songs on her albums simply adopted the thought-experiment of “let’s make the curlicues the entire point of the song”. But I also think Bjork’s singing style exists in an elastic relationship to song-structure, and if the songwriting becomes too diffuse it can tend to dilute the push-pull intensity of the singing, the sense in which Bjork is giving voice to some kind of radical excess.

yes, really well said

There are some real hidden gems among those three Sugarcubes albums.

and the B-sides, and the 10" remix of "Deus"

As her songwriting has grown less structured, the distinction between song and curlicue has grown murkier

this is true, but it also made me think about how much i enjoy the moments in the later albums where you can separate out these aspects of her songwriting into distinct sections (for instance "mutual core" = curlicues in the verses assemble into the song in the chorus)

there's also a pronounced tendency in her later work to circle around a single melody for five minutes ("blissing me") and i don't know if i'd classify it as either song or curlicue (so, murky as you said)

Yes, and those are two of her best later songs in large part for those reasons.

“Blissing Me” reminds me of Vashti Bunyan both vocally and musically.

God, "Blissing Me" is an oasis on that album.

it's such a lovely song

I think there's a definite analogous path to Bjork's career as there was to Joni Mitchell's, and right now we're at 'Mingus'. Which maybe means soon Bjork's going to do interesting song-form music again soon that will be following trends rather than laying foundations--but it'll still be interesting. And then in a few years we'll get "back to basics" Bjork (or maybe that was 'Vulnicura'). FWIW, I've come to love almost all of Mitchell's ouevre even though none of it ever matched the heights of 'Blue', so I'm hoping I'll dig 'Utopia' one day...

Which maybe means soon Bjork's going to do interesting song-form music again soon that will be following trends rather than laying foundations

great description of volta

not sure which if any Volta tracks I'm going to vote for, but the video for Wanderlust is all-time great I think

agreed, i couldn't fit it into my top five but it's a gorgeous video

It's my 2nd place vote for vids.

finishing up my ballot, will send tomorrow

^^^ me too

really enjoying the lyrics on Utopia today, googling love in this fucking mist, etc.