I never liked Bjork before

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But after listening to a concert in Cambridge from the Homogenic tour I've started to think she's brilliant. "Hyper-ballad" is my favourite at the moment. Odd that I used to think her lyrics were moronic. Their haiku-like genius eluded me until this.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 23 November 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I mean, she's pretty good anyway.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 23 November 2003 18:21 (twenty-one years ago)

"There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

Luke 15: 7.

― stevo (stevo), Sunday, 23 November 2003 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

No, no, you were right at "genius".

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Sunday, 23 November 2003 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I never liked Bjork before one day I was sitting in the theatre in Royal Oak, Michigan, waiting for 24 Hour Party People to start when they piped in some of her album with Matmos and even the parts with her singing sounded good. I haven't followed up on this in the year and a three months since.

― Curt (cgould), Sunday, 23 November 2003 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked Debut, but it's all been downhill since then. (Actually, I'm sorry I got rid of Post, since it's certainly better than some CDs I still own.)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 23 November 2003 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)

All my friends who like music always told me she was a "genius" and I liked what I heard okay but wasn't too interested. Then I asked this pianist I know what he listens to and he said "I don't really listen to much music, ironically. Just classical. And Bjork." And so I reconsidered a little. I have burnt copies of Debut and Vespertine, and there are a few songs I really love ("Cocoon", "There's More to Life Than This"). The albums are spotty though.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 23 November 2003 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

cocoon is an incredible track
i love most of what i've heard by bjork,even if there's a few tracks that wreck my head...

― robin (robin), Sunday, 23 November 2003 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I was surprised to see that Susana Baca covers a Bjork song (The Anchor Song) on one of her CDs.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 23 November 2003 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I keep wanting to sing the title of this thread to the melody of "Then Came You" by the Spinners.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 23 November 2003 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

never liked her neither. her first was her best, yes probably. but me too i have maybe to reevaluate her. her opera diva side still turns me off a lot though. i used to hate her voice (rickie lee jones did this so much better) but i am not too sure anymore. and dancer in the dark was probably the worst movie i've ever seen. it has always escaped me how people could be fascinated by watching executions...

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 23 November 2003 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I've always found bjork rather impenetrable - although i've never actually *owned* one of her albums. i like a lot of music in a similar vein, so i've always thought she was something i *should* be into, but i've been curiously unmoved by what i've heard. i think i might buy an album and really make a concerted effort, because i've been told i'm missing out!

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Sunday, 23 November 2003 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

All her albums are variously great but Homogenic and Selmasongs are absolutely my favourites, I seem to like her huge whirling crunching grandiose HighDrama moments best. Selmasongs in particular is heavyweight (in terms of musical gigantic-ness, rather than emotionally, or whatever). In The Musicals is heartwrenchingly giddy lifeswirling GENIUS.

― Alex in Doncaster (Alex in Doncaster), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Debut and Homogenic are classic and the last one is great to fuck to. Nuff said.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

dancer in the dark was probably the worst movie i've ever seen. it has always escaped me how people could be fascinated by watching executions...

I don't think anybody liked the ending, Alex. There was a story in there, too, and that was part of it.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Selmasongs is fantastic, but everything else I can pretty much take or leave.

I still think she peaked when NME made Birthday by the Sugarcubes their single of the week.

― Nihilist Pop Star (mjt), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Nick OTM.
Don't know if I'd like her now if I wasn't turned onto her in high school, when Debut came out. I was listening to stuff like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, etc---you know, rock. She was so different from everything else I had heard before then. I haven't listened to rock since.

― oops (Oops), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't like the Sugarcubes, nor anything else she did until Homogenic, but I like that and Vespertine quite a bit. It seems like the more she quiets down her music, the better I like her. Her upbeat songs are intolerable, but the quiet stuff is nice.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Sunday, 23 November 2003 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Phil you are the anti-me!

I vastly prefer her upbeat songs and desperately wish that she'd put out more disco-y songs. The last good Bjork dance song was "Alarm Call" and that dates back to '97. C'mon Bjork, ditch Matthew Barney and get on the dance floor!

Best Bjork album: Homogenic. Post and Debut are both pretty good, but I don't care for most of Selmasongs and Vespertine aside from "New World," "Unison," "Cocoon," and "It's Not Up To You."

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Sunday, 23 November 2003 22:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think anybody liked the ending, Alex. There was a story in there, too, and that was part of it.
was there? i thought it was all about the end. somehow the story was just the bait, i felt. i honestly hate lars von trier, his films are just false.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 23 November 2003 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Bjork seems to be kind of a high school bridge for a lot of people.

I say Bachelorette is unfuckwithable:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=712

― Michael Patrick Brady (Michael Patrick Brady), Sunday, 23 November 2003 22:30 (twenty-one years ago)

You didn't find it compelling how badly she wanted a better life for her child? How she was willing to die for it? Do you think there's some commentary in there?

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 23 November 2003 22:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Refresh my memory. Did she appear on a few pre-sugarcube KUKL records?

― cs appleby (cs appleby), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

i think what annoys me so much about this film is the amateur documentary feel. pretending it was a true story. the over-the-top emotionality which is just hiding a total lack of feeling. either von trier is a cynic or his brain is fucked up or he has found his commercially successful niche or any combination of these. "dancer in the dark" is like a "big brother" where those kind of extreme things happen the spectators were hoping for in the container series.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i still don't like bjork much. the only album i own is a cdr of 'verspertine' tho.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

My friend and I were talking about Bjork a couple of nights ago. Both of us agreed that she's one of the few musicial performers of the modern era who we would label a genius. Having said this, we both admitted to not listening to her as much as others. We then hypothesized that her work is best heard not in bunches, but in spurts juxtaposed among other musics.

Also, about "Dancer in the Dark", I would find it difficult to recommend it to anyone (about 75% of the people in the theatre left before the first musical number when I saw it), I did think that there were payoffs to the film. For me, it was the wonder of music and imagination, even in the face of such a drab and deteriorating life.

― peepee (peepee), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I feel old when I see how "the modern era" keeps shifting.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 23 November 2003 23:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I kinda dig it myself. With distance I can now laugh about those cuh-razy 90s, musicwise.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 24 November 2003 01:06 (twenty-one years ago)

you're all screwed.

― reo fordecor, Monday, 24 November 2003 02:40 (twenty-one years ago)

When I read "the modern era" in music, I'm thinking like from the beginning of the 20th Century, but people seem to begin it at some point in the 80's at the earliest. (That's because of all this "modern rock" nonsense.)

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Monday, 24 November 2003 02:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I dunno if its the "modern rock" nonsense as much as the fact that music education is shit these days.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 24 November 2003 02:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I did meen "the modurn aira of rock and roll". Just, cuz, yoo no, this bored is almost only bout musik maid after 1960 and stuff.
(BTW, thanks to all yoo smart peeple who lets me hang out wit them hear.)

― peepee (peepee), Monday, 24 November 2003 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

It's funny - to be able to get into it at first, I had to ignore her lyrics and vocal quirks, the quirky 'girliness' (or something) of it, all of which had turned me off before, and just listen for the accompanying music (which I'd always thought was at least interesting and which was great on this concert - dissonant strings and ambient electronics) and melodies. But after doing this, I actually started to appreciate the lyrics and some of the vocal quirks. Then I started to notice how clever and inventive the lyrics actually were.

I thought Dancer In the Dark was appallingly bad when I saw it, which I think was also a big part of what had turned me off her.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 24 November 2003 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Just listened to the Kukl's Holidays in Europe (The Naughty Nought) and it's.. um, interesting. It's like like final Crass EP "10 Notes on a Summer's Day".. the weirder, later, artier Crass but even more weird, and artier. And for a whole album.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 24 November 2003 05:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Dancer in the Dark is just about the only Bjork I won't defend. It was long and awful, and Selmasongs is my least favorite of her albums too.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 24 November 2003 05:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Ain't nobody like her. Which is probably good -- one's enough. I'm glad there's one though.

― spittle (spittle), Monday, 24 November 2003 07:16 (twenty-one years ago)

ive been a fan since the sugarcubes. i def. go through cycles w. her albums tho

― kephm, Monday, 24 November 2003 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

wers the Volta thread?

― Surmounter, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 00:37 (eighteen years ago)

There's one somewhere...

― The Brainwasher, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 00:39 (eighteen years ago)

it's so scary - it's like a child gone missing... Volta! Come here Volta! Where'd you run off to now?

― Surmounter, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)

it's findable... takes a fucking while though

― fandango, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

could it be this one? (strange, no posts for a while)

News about the upcoming Björk album.

― StanM, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 12:53 (eighteen years ago)

yeah... could do with a mod edit really to put the album title in there!

I don't think it's strange there's no new posts though... personally I just feel like there's not too much to talk about :(

― fandango, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 12:55 (eighteen years ago)

oh u know it was the umlaut thing

― Surmounter, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

well i'm only just listening to it so i have a few things to say

― Surmounter, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

thx 4 link

― Surmounter, Wednesday, 13 June 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

Can I just say I really, really like the Lexx mix of "Earth Intruders"? kthx

― Telephone thing, Friday, 15 June 2007 05:46 (eighteen years ago)

Is that our Lex in disguise?

― StanM, Friday, 15 June 2007 06:28 (eighteen years ago)

Alas, no. Some Swiss dude who's released tracks on Relish and Compost's Black Label series according to Discogs.

― Telephone thing, Friday, 15 June 2007 07:01 (eighteen years ago)

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