HYPERBALLOT: ILM Artist Poll #88 -- Björk Resultsness

xp

ok, that makes sense

yeah it was the youtube video of Solipsist that I was reacting to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJnhaXwK86M

02. Bachelorette (1997) -- 101 points; 12 votes; 4 first-place votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528

01. All is Full of Love (1999) -- 123 points; 14 votes; 5 first-place votes

fair

Full music video results:

All is Full of Love	123	14
Bachelorette	101	12
Human Behavior	93	11
Hyperballad	78	10
Triumph of the Heart	65	8
Army of Me	42	5
Big Time Sensuality	37	5
Pagan Poetry	35	4
Wanderlust	34	4
It's Oh So Quiet	33	4
Isobel	33	4
Mutual Core	29	4
Jóga	28	4
Gate, The	25	4
Possibly Maybe	23	3
Venus as a Boy	21	3
I Miss You	16	2
Black Lake	15	2
Who Is It	12	2
Cocoon	9	1
Hunter	9	1
Unison	7	1
Hidden Place	6	1
Oceania	6	1

"Joga" and "Possibly Maybe" and "I Miss You" all had a single first-place vote each.

There’s a great bit in the Emily Mackay book about how the AiFoL video anticipated (inspired?) the white, sterile look of the iPod and other Apple products of a few years later.

All is full of love is not only the best bjork video it should be in every top 10 music videos from the 90’s from here to eternity. Hyperballad would be my second choice. There are days when I think Bjork videos are even better than her songs.

i voted for the Joga video, the one with all the digitally altered shots and zooms and pans of icelandic landscapes. parts of it just look silly bad today, but i still get really disoriented (in a good way) with some of the weird pans that shift in time with the music, like the shot of the river around 1:42 in. the 480p quality of the youtube version is not pleasant to look at, though.

i was also the Isobel #1. i used to watch a bjork video collection at my friend's house on a weekly basis, and Isobel was the one that always sucked me in. love the way the two holographic versions of her approach and retreat into each other, a trick that's used in the Hyperballad video a bit too.

y’all how did “I Miss You” not even place???

i mean

it was really hard to vote for a v perverse john k. video given recent news

^^^ yup

it’s such a great video. whole thing fuckin sucks

oh yikes I don’t know anything about it??

in breaking news I do NOT like the “Cocoon” video

“Hunter” video is like worse than “Play Dead” in terms of snooze factor

no!

idk the bear effect carries it i think

I had the same thought re: John K but tbh it was never my favorite Bjork video or song

some björk videos live or die on the strength of their central image

Like “Violently Happy”

yep

oh fuuuuuuuck John K what a sack of shit!!

After listening to his commentary tracks on the Ren and Stimpy discs, hardly surprised

I was always annoyed that they wrote down the wrong lyrics in the I Miss You video. "Well it's more important" instead of "Or what is more important". Couldn't they check the lyrics sheet before putting them in the video ?

I fell asleep just before the Sugarcubes rollout. All 5 of my selections were in the top 9 there, though I guess their oeuvre is fairly small.

It occurs to that it's almost exactly 30 years since I was startled by "Birthday". Not least the bit about the raven gliding down the sky. SHE TOUCHED IT!!!! It served as timely gateway to whole lot of (mostly UK) indie stuff at the very moment I tuned to the right radio stations. Though, as Tim F said in the other thread, their relationship to such music wasn't necessarily straightforward a lot of the time. I'm not sure I've ever had a favourite song but "Birthday" has probably come to mind more often than anything else when the question has come up!

"occurs to ME"

Interesting results for videos (I haven't seen any post-Vespertine) and Sugarcubes (surprised there was so much consensus that only 16 songs got voted for, thought I might be the only voter for some of my tracks). can't wait to see tracks!

It looks like everyone just voted for the most Bjork-centric Sugarcubes tracks (other than “Fucking in Rhythm & Sorrow” which I would have liked to have had space to cote for, and “Chihuahua” which, lol).

damn yeah i was wondering where the I Miss You video was, then the penny dropped.

Cool results so far, the albums list was more or less what I expected but can't really argue with it. Despite owning the Volumen: Greatest Hits DVD I didn't get round to properly re-watching all the videos so my votes were pretty nostalgic. Wasn't familiar with many remixes so that took a bit of digging - ended up without any overlap between my remix votes and originals in my top 30 tracks, completely unintentionally. The Sugarcubes have some great songs but I do think all you really need by them is the Best of.

My sidepoll ballots anyway, all ranked 1-5

Albums:
Homogenic
Vespertine
Medúlla
Post
Debut

Remixes:
Virus (Hudson Mohawke Peaches & Guacamol Remix)
Cover Me (Dillinja Mix)
It's in Our Hands (Soft Pink Truth Mix)
Arisen My Senses (Lanark Artefax Remix)
Mutual Core (Matthew Herbert's Teutonic Plates Mix)

Music videos:
Army of Me
Bachelorette
Hyperballad
Human Behaviour
Hidden Place

Sugarcubes tracks:
Birthday
Hit
Planet
Mama
Walkabout

My albums:

Albums:

01. Homogenic (10.0)
02. Post (1995) [9.7]
03. Medulla (2004) [9.5]
04. Vespertine (2001) [8.3]
05. Vulnicura (2015) [8.0]
06. Debut (1993) [7.7]
07. Biophilia (2011) [7.2]
08. Utopia (2017) [6.0]
09. Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) [5.3]
10. Semlasongs (2000) [5.1]
11. Volta (3.5)

Remixes/Versions:

01. Anchor Song (Strings Version)
02. Isobel (Deodato Mix)
03. Black Lake (Viola Organista Version)
04. Hyperballad (Girls Blouse Mix)
05. I Miss You (Dobie Part 1)
06. All Is Full of Love (Strings)
07. Sun In My Mouth (Recomposed By Ensemble)
08. Oceania (Piano & Vocal)
09. Bjork - Earth Intruders (Lexx Remix)
10. Wanderlust (Ratatat Remix)

For remixes I realized for me it's all about versions that really engage the track, and don't just superimpose a genre or a totally unrelated idea. A secondary criterion was how close to being as good and coherent a piece as the original. The live Brodsky version of "Anchor Song" is the only version for me that supercedes its original--the strings work better than the saxes, and my god--her total vocal mastery! You can hear how far she'd come in a few years.

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/60-quicksand.jpg

60. Quicksand (Vulnicura, 2015) -- 196.5 points; 7 votes

my #29!

Just about didn't make my final cut, but a great track to start with nonetheless.

In an album with so many long and pained tracks, "Quicksand" is such an effectively abrupt conclusion.

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/59-an-echo-a-stain.jpg

59. An Echo, A Stain (Vespertine, 2001) -- 210 points; 5 votes

^^^ love this

echo! one of her first really centerless compositions. so beautiful

Quicksand was one of three songs from Vulnicura that made my list. She's one of my favourite artists for album closers.

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/58-generous_palmstroke.jpg

58. Generous Palmstroke ("Hidden Place" B-side, 2001) -- 216 points; 6 votes

yesssss

High-five to Brad for “centre-less”

Looking forward to roaming this thread after the roll out.

& especially looking forward to...

Great! I've been preparing a bit this weekend, setting beat grids/cue points/etc for a nice playlist of Björk remixes, I'm just waiting for the poll-winners, include those and then I can live mix & record a hopefully halfway decent hour-long mix. Listening to dozens of these remixes, I feel more and more it's a real shame that she abandoned dancefloor oriented material so quickly.

― Siegbran, Monday, May 7, 2018 3:34 PM (yesterday)

Can't believe I didn't fall for "Generous Palmstroke" back in 2001. The important thing is I stan for it now.

The lyrics, harp melody and her fragile voice performance on this one are really engraved forever in my mind. "You have to trust, I am eternally yours, all that I gave them I gave to you", "So needy of comfort, but too raw to be embraced, undo this privacy and put me in my place" etc. The way she looks appreciatingly to Zeena too. It's a "moment", like Immature is.

awesome artwork

https://cansesclasseled.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/57-theres-more-to-life-than-this.jpg

57. There's More to Life Than This (Debut, 1993) -- 217 points; 7 votes

A Spotify playlist of the rollout, including sub-polls, in case anyone is interested:

https://open.spotify.com/user/empeecee/playlist/2iT7jz1QIN3esqFt1JsC4W?si=Y-eYOZhvTcKhDQseJlvg5Q

Made it collaborative. I need to go to bed myself--do feel free to tinker. :)

I know it's a lightweight novelty track, but the production on this is amazing, it really sets up that atmosphere so convincingly