New Cats, Same Disdain: Selmasongs [Review This Again]

The Good: Vocals illustrate some skill
The Bad: SHORT!, Cacophonic musical accompaniment, Unmemorable/creepy lyrics, Musically messy, Indecipherable lyrics/vocal performances
The Basics: Bjork's soundtrack album Selmasongs has not aged well.


[There is a big meme in the art community going around now called "Draw This Again." In the meme, artists illustrate how they have grown in their chosen medium by putting side-by-side pictures of art they created in the past and now. My wife had the great idea that I should do something similar with my reviewing. So, for 2017, I will be posting occasional "Review This Again" reviews, where I revisit subjects I had previously reviewed and review them again, through a lens of increased age, more experience, and - for some - greater familiarity with the subject. This review is one such review, where I am re-experiencing Selmasongs: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack 'Dancer In The Dark' after many years and with more experience as both a reviewer and one who has heard much of the Bjork library. The album was originally reviewed here!]

A good title often works as a decent hook for reviews. It's true and sometimes, the truth is, I try to sensationalize to get people into the meat of my reviews by a hook-laden title. So, I figured when I was looking for a Review This Again subject for Bjork that I would use Selmasongs and do some objective testing with my new cats. After all, when I originally reviewed Selmasongs, I had entirely different cats in my home (life, time and tragedy being what they are). I asserted in my original review of Selmasongs that the album was not cat-friendly and, indeed, all I recall about the album was that it drove both my cats from the room for the duration of my listenings to it. So, before I put on Selmasongs, I brought my three cats into the room, played with them, wore them out and let them settle down.

The verdict from my cats on Selmasongs was incredibly clear. The moment "Cvalda" began, Evie fled the room. For sure, she is a scaredy cat; at one and a half years old, she gets spooked. She has not re-emerged. Elim, my very clingy cat, the one who chose me and who took the longest to settle down, left the room before the end of "Cvalda" and has come back into the room a few times since I put on Selmasongs, meowed noisily, then left the room again. Timber, my laziest cat, has remained perched on his cat tower near the couch where I am writing this review, but periodically, he had lifted his head and glared at me, especially each time "Scatterheart" has come on. My wife, who is not a cat but has been suffering a bout of insomnia lately, managed to fall asleep about two hours ago, but came out during my third replay of Selmasongs to sleepily glare at me and as "What the hell are you listening to?!"

So, two out of three cats will leave the room when Selmasongs is on, one will be agitated but too lazy to flee and this Bjork album is enough to get a sleep-deprived wife out of bed to question its musical validity. Selmasongs is not a crowd pleaser.

What Selmasongs is is a dreadfully short soundtrack to the film Dancer In The Dark. In the interest of full disclosure, I've not seen Dancer In The Dark and have no context for the music on Selmasongs. This is a pure review of the album as it stacks up musically on its own.

Selmasongs is a seven-song album clocking out at 32:12 and is very much the work of Icelandic artist Bjork. Bjork wrote or co-wrote all seven songs and produced or co-produced them all as well. Bjork provides all of the lead vocals, though "I've Seen It All" is a duet with Thom Yorke. Given that the album has (I've recently learned) been reworked from the music that appears in the film, it seems like Selmasongs is the album Bjork intended to make.

Vocally, Selmasongs features Bjork singing and what that means this time around is that the listener hears an angsty voice performing in the alto and soprano registers. Bjork goes a little lower on "In The Musicals" and when she does, her voice becomes hypnotic and nauseating as she repeats the line "You were always there to catch me." Between that line and the numbers she sings in "107 Steps" there are very few memorable or clearly performed lyrics on Selmasongs.

Musically, Selmasongs is largely a mess. Between "Overture" and the end of "New World," which ultilizes some of the same musical themes as "Overture" there are a series of messy, noisy songs that are amelodic nightmares. "107 Steps" meanders outside the strings, "Cvalda" ought to be called "cacophony," and the opening to "In The Musicals" is unsettling. The instrumental accompaniment on Selmasongs is often percussion-driven and it creates a mood that is lonely, unsettling and unfortunately noisy.

Usually, I take some time to discuss lyrics on an album, but with Selmasongs, I'm going to pass. Listeners aren't likely to be able to understand most of the lines Bjork sings and Thom Yorke is saddled with unfortunately unimpressive lines to sing on "I've Seen It All," so I just don't see the point in going into the poetry of Bjork for Selmasongs. Selmasongs is largely unlistenable.

The best track is "Overture," the worst song is "Cvalda."

For other Bjork works, please visit my reviews of:
Debut
Telegram
Homogenic
Vespertine
Vulnicura

2/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Latest Unmemorable Bjork Album Is Vulnicura!

The Good: Impressive vocal range, A few interesting musical experiments, One or two lines
The Bad: Incongruent music/lyrics, Often indecipherable, Vague melodies
The Basics: Bjork continues her experimental career on Vulnicura, an artistic and utterly forgettable album.


Recently, I went on a short (for me) car trip and over the ten hours one way and eight hours the other, I had a chance to listen to a fraction of my musical library. I realized just how much I have been missing music in my life. Returning home, that was lessened some by the fact that my wife has had the Hamilton Soundtrack playing almost daily, but I figured it was time for me to make time for listening to and reviewing music again. Today, that takes the form of trying once again to get into the music of Bjork. For that, I went to her latest album, Vulnicura.

Vulnicura is yet another album by Icelandic artist Bjork and it follows in her long history of creating ambient electronic and string-driven music that is paired with her lilting vocals . . . and creates an entirely forgettable final product. Indeed, in my many travels and musical discussions, I've never actually heard anyone say "You really need to listen to this Bjork album!" At best, there are songs by Bjork some fans might want others to hear, but Vulnicura does not really have a single and I suspect its overwhelmingly somnambulant quality is enough to make even the most loyal Bjork fan into a narcoleptic.

With only nine songs, clocking out at 58:36, Vulnicura is short, but features well-developed musical pieces. The entire album is the creative vision of Bjork. Bjork wrote or co-wrote all nine songs, provides all of the lead vocals, was responsible for programming and produced or co-produced each track on the album. While Bjork arranged the strings, she is not credited with playing any instruments on Vulnicura, though she is credited as a co-producer for the album. As with most of Bjork's works, it is hard to deny that this is the musical vision the artist intended.

Unfortunately, Vulnicura is musically light to the point of being insubstantial. The songs have very little in the way of memorable melodies or harmonies. Instead, the string instruments back up electronic elements. After listening to the album on heavy replay for a day, I am thoroughly convinced that one could play any of these songs for me again and I would not recognize it by the tune. The songs on Vulnicura do not capture the ear or the imagination; they are vague backings to the usual murky vocals of Bjork.

Bjork has an impressive voice on Vulnicura. Bjork has a great soprano voice, which she utilizes well on Vulnicura, at least as an intellectual exercise. As with many Bjork albums, Bjork's vocals are aesthetically-pleasing, but often inarticulate. Bjork mumbles and produces musical elements to match her vocals in such a way that they blend and overwhelm her words. As a result, about one in every five works Bjork sings on Vulnicura are comprehensible.

Lyrically, Vulnicura is mostly about relationships, both romantic and familial. Bjork does have something to say with her lines "I wake you up / In the middle of the night / To express my love for you / Stroke your skin and feel you / Naked I can feel all of you / At the same moment" ("History Of Touches"). If only the music and the lyrics were remotely congruent, "History Of Touches" could have been one of Bjork's best songs!

Bjork uses her voice to resonate a sense of loss on "Quicksand." When Bjork sings "When I'm broken I am whole / And when I'm whole I'm broken / Our mother's philosophy / It feels like quicksand / And if she sinks / I'm going down with her / Locate her black lake / The steam from this pit" ("Quicksand"), it is hard not to feel like one is spinning out of control.

Not all of Bjork's lines - whether they can be understood or not - are winners, though. "Notget" becomes unfortunately fluffy and cliche. Even Bjork cannot make credible the long-overused sentiments like "You doubted the light / And the shelter it can give / For in love we are immortal / Eternal and safe from death / If I regret us / I'm denying my soul to grow / Don't remove my pain / It is my chance to heal" ("Notget").

Ultimately, Vulnicura is not the worst of Bjork, but it is not an album one is likely to want to sit down and get immersed in. It is an interesting-enough creative exercise, but a forgettable musical work. The best song is "History Of Touches" (though the album opens interestingly enough with "Stonemilker"); the rest of the songs are pretty unremarkable.

For other Bjork works, please visit my reviews of:
Debut
Telegram
Homogenic
Selmasongs
Vespertine

5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Indistinct Bjork: Vespertine. The Only Thing Worse Than Weird Bjork, Is Boring Bjork!

The Good: Moments with genuine creativity
The Bad: Boring, Repetitive, Utterly unmemorable, Incomprehensible, Unimpressive vocally and musically, Familiar
The Basics: Bjork creates what some would have doubted the strange artist could: an album that is utterly bland and boring, indistinct and underwhelming in every sense.


Bjork may well be an acquired taste, but as I pretty much finish up my run of listening to her albums (I'll still take on her "Greatest Hits," because I cannot seem to find my review of that anywhere), I think it is a fair statement to say that the bulk of her work is creative and very different from the norm. The problem is that when she is not being weird and so different as to be unsettling and creepy, her works are just plain dull. Unfortunately, with Vespertine, Bjork crosses the line from being truly alternative and unique (even if I did not like the results) to boring, familiar and pedestrian. Vespertine is Brand Bjork; for those who have listened to her other works, there is nothing truly new and different here.

The only real difference between Vespertine and albums like Debut and Selmasongs is that Bjork does not push out the envelope in any new way. The result is an album that is indistinct and unmemorable. I am on the eighth listen through the album and I swear I could not pick out a single track. Moreover, whenever it begins to replay, I never notice, so homogenous is the sound on the album.

With twelve tracks clocking in at a little under fifty-six minutes, Vespertine is indisputably the work of Icelandic alternative singer-songwriter Bjork. On the album she wrote (or co-wrote) all of the tracks as well as produced (or co-produced) all of the songs. As well, she provided the primary vocals for each song, did arrangement of choirs, harp and programming on many of the tracks (often with others). Moreover, she plays harp on one of the tracks and laid down the bassline on other tracks. She is intimately involved, according to the liner notes, with each track on Vespertine. This, truly, is her album.

Unfortunately, Bjork is - at best - an artist who has poetics that are memorable and a concept of individuality that is laudable. Unfortunately, on Vespertine, the lyrics are not up to the caliber of some of her other poems and what can be understood tends to be so only because of repetition. Vespertine is plagued by repeated lines that are just grating listen after listen. This starts with the first track, "Hidden Place." I swear if it were not for the words lines "I'll keep it in a hidden place" and the variants that all include "Hidden Place" in them, the song is indecipherable. But lyrically, it is not that interesting even to read.

This is saying something because the lines - as printed in the liner notes - are some of the most sexual that Bjork has ever written. But she manages to take somewhat sensual lines like ". . . But I can smell a pinch of hope / To almost have allowed once fingers / To stroke / The fingers I was given to touch with / But careful careful / There lies my passion hidden . . ." ("Hidden Place") and gut the mood by attaching the intriguing lines to the virtually same repetitive lines that are heard before and after it. In other words, Bjork's attention to structural convention and more traditional refrains (or at least two word phrases repeated ad nauseam) guts the originality of her lines.

And while it seems like she might be developing themes on Vespertine, like a theme of fingers, which come up on "Hidden Place," "Pagan Poetry," and "Sun In My Mouth," she never truly lands them. Instead, she opens with the idea of fingers as sexual organs and then goes nowhere with the idea.

The album, instead becomes obsessed with repetition. Track after track, the few lines that are comprehensible are made so by repetition. "Undo," which is plagued by repeated background vocals of "It's not meant to be a struggle uphill" precedes "Pagan Poetry" alliterative title pops up with annoying frequency and obviousness and then degenerates into "She loves him" being repeated over and over again.

I write "when comprehensible," because - like many albums by Bjork, Vespertine features the Icelandic soprano leaping all over the vocal range but presenting most of the lyrics with a whispy voice that is hardly forceful or articulate. Force is present with "Aurora," which also has the annoyingly repetitive - though thematically sensible for creating an aural presentation of light - high pitched vocal progression scales. But after being forceful, she mumbles her way through the latter half of the song.

And on Vespertine, Bjork's voice is hardly impressive. Instead, it is remarkably traditional and obvious; it sounds like it could be almost any female singer who is produced into the music. But most of the lines are not comprehensible because Bjork sings them quietly and with little emphasis on them. Truly, this is the definition of indistinct music. None of her vocal performances stand out, save that one recognizes that she is singing when she repeats the same lines over and over and over again.

On the plus side, it does seem like Bjork's pronunciations on Vespertine are more true to the English language. This is a plus because she seems to insist on singing in English. On this album, what can be understood actually sounds like Bjork fully understands what she is singing. (On prior albums some of her pronunciations were just terrible and she sang her lines with a quality so tentative that it felt like perhaps she had been given a translation of her own works and did not know exactly what words corresponded with the ones she wrote.)

Like many of her albums, Bjork produces various sounds into the songs, like her trademark animal sounds on "An Echo, A Stain." But here is an excellent example of Brand Bjork formula; almost all of the songs are produced and assembled the same way. They are all quiet songs, with disproportionate emphasis on drowning the lyrics out with strings and production elements. The notable exception to this is "Sun In My Mouth," wherein Bjork holds her own against the harp.

Like many of her albums, Vespertine also emphasizes percussion over the lyrics, which is awkward to be able to hear what is keeping time over what is being said. The percussion is most notable on "Heirloom" which is also one of the most heavily produced tracks on the album. It also sounds like it could have been on virtually any other Bjork album.

And therein lies the problem with Vespertine. As mentioned before, it is generally a quiet album and each song is presented in almost the same way as the one before it and the one after and as a result, the album flows from track to track, reloaded without leaving any impression. "Flow" tends to imply a good sense of arrangement; "blend" would probably be a more accurate assessment of the music on Vespertine. The songs blend together in a way that is very dull to the ear. Truth be told; I might have listened to this album more than the eight times I think I have, given that the replay does not strengthen the listen.

Fans of Bjork will not find anything they have not heard before. Not literally, of course; this is entirely new material. The problem is that it does not sound remotely new. This is the same old thing and it is familiar and boring. Those unfamiliar with Bjork will not be bowled over by anything on this album. Musically it is dull and it sounds more like a sublime pop album than a truly alternative work. It is common, overproduced and lacking in originality and/or vision.

The best track, if it could be said to be one (given how it blends), is the purely instrumental "Frosti." Everything else on the album could be considered one, long, mundane, inferior track.

For other works by Bjork, please check out my reviews of:
Debut
Telegram
Homogenic
Selmasongs: The Soundtrack To Dancer In The Dark

1/10

For an organized listing of all my music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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No, Cats, I'm Not Punishing You With Bjork's Selmasongs, Another Dismal Bjork Album

The Good: Orchestral work, Generally more comprehensible than some of Bjork's other albums!
The Bad: Short, Dull, Lyrics, Boring, Musically unimaginative, Very common
The Basics: Yes, it's a soundtrack but out of context, Selmasongs is just boring music made worse by Bjork's singing unclearly in (we presume) English.


I have come to believe that my poor cats, Brillo and Gollum, are beginning to feel like they are being punished and they don't know why. It seems like whenever I pop in a new (to me) Bjork album, after a few moments, they begin mewing and crying. Truly, it is heartbreaking. The older one, Brillo, just now came out of the bedroom when Selmasongs, the current Bjork album I'm spinning, finished. By the time track two began, he was hiding back out in the bedroom. I don't think he understands me when I assure him that there's only one more Bjork album after this one that I have to listen to.

Gollum is crying now and I can't tell if he's trying to harmonize with Bjork's vocals. Either way, it seems like both of them will be much happier when I've finished reviewing Selmasongs and the final Bjork album I have kicking around to review.

With only seven tracks, clocking out at 32:16, Selmasongs is both the least audacious and most mundane Bjork album I've yet heard and, as it turns out, it is all music - according to the c.d. cover from the film Dancer In The Dark. I'll be up front and admit that I have not seen Dancer In The Dark and so this is a very pure review of the c.d. as an album, not as anything other than the music as it is heard on this presentation.

Selmasongs had me going the first time I heard it. I thought "This might be a Bjork album I can recommend!" The reason was simple; the first track, "Overture" is an orchestral track without any vocals. The music is deep, sounding somewhat derivative of something with the magnitude of tracks from the Batman Returns Soundtrack (reviewed here!) and it is a thoroughly pleasant musical work featuring a rather traditional orchestral sound. And I like it.

Those good feelings are almost immediately dashed by the industrial worksite sounds that open "Cvalda," a duet between Bjork and Catherine Denueve. The vocals - which Gollum is howling to (he's not a noisy cat, usually!) - open with the chaos of Bjork singing words like "clatter" and "crash" which are already noises being made by the instrumentals or background sounds. The lines, then, are somewhat unnecessary. After all, we already get that there's chaos and clutter and noise. We don't need a vocal essentially saying "noise" to make the noise any more evident. The track has a big Broadway feel to is and when it isn't sounding theatrical, it is just noisy.

The lyrics of "I've Seen It All," which follows as the album's third track are presented with Bjork's very straightforward quiet, waifish presentation, opposite Thom Yorke's vocals. Yorke sounds much like Moby and the overall song is a pretty straightforward duet with Yorke and Bjork playing off one another's lines. Sadly, the most comprehensible song also has some of the lamest rhymes on the album. When asked about China, the exchange proceeds, "Have you seen the Great Wall? / All walls are great, if the roof doesn't fall" ("I've Seen It All"). The strange thing is, Bjork has a weird oscillation between wonderful poetics and lines that sound like they are either written by a fifth grader or just take such a delight in the simplicity of learning English words as to make them dismally underdeveloped.

On that subject, Bjork takes confusing credit on the album, as the liner notes say "All tracks written by Bjork," but then "Tracks 2 & 5 written by Bjork, Bell, Sjon, Von Trier" and tracks 3,4,6, and 7 are credited to the quartet, less Bell. It's hard to evaluate the album as a function of Bjork, then because how much she was involved outside the vocals is not clear. She is credited with the vocal editing, so she is pretty much to blame for any overproduction. Unlike other Bjork albums, she is not credited with providing keyboards on Selmasongs.

On "Scatterheart," the vocals are overproduced and they are often drown out by the electronically produced percussion. In other words, this is a very typical Bjork sound. It's about sound with minimal emphasis on the actual lyrics being sung. The result is something more bland than I tend to enjoy and the repetition of "You're gonna have to find out for yourself" ("Scatterheart") repeated over and over and over again is just mundane.

At least "In The Musicals" has something of an actual musical sense to it. The track has squeaky background noises, but at least it has a musical quality to it. It is possible to pick out a general tune or recognize some instruments in it. The result is pleasant enough, if a little bland. It sounds like a soundtrack song, actually.

At least "In The Musicals" with its attempt at making music and telling a story (even if the vocals are mostly garbled) is better than "107 Steps," the penultimate song of the album. Unlike a song like the quirky "32 Footsteps" by They Might Be Giants, presented on Then (reviewed here!), "107 Steps" is pointless and droll. There is no real story being told. Yes, Bjork sings from one to one hundred seven, counting footsteps as the violins and woodwinds reach a crescendo. And for those bored by the weirdness of it, which reminds me of Kate Bush's song "Pi" off the terrible Aerial (reviewed here!) all hope is dashed when Bjork begins skipping numbers in the early seventies. No, the song does not end any quicker as a result. Instead, there is an instrumental bit that closes the track about where the song would have ended had Bjork actually counted all of the numbers between seventy and one hundred seven.

"New World" closes the album and the listener is left with the sense that the performer has been transformed, though we are unsure exactly how. After all, musically, the track is very close to the orchestral "Overture" that opened the album. So, how did the musical protagonist grow and change? Who knows? Who cares? She now sings alongside the orchestra. But wait! She's been doing that most of the rest of the album.

Okay, as one might guess, I find myself thoroughly underwhelmed with Selmasongs. The album is short and it feels like the sound recording of a high school musical that was produced with a rather sophisticated orchestra. But it is basically orchestral music fronted by Bjork and when it is not Bjork's trademark indecipherable vocals presenting whatever the musical story is, it's just boring.

Yes, almost as bad as Bjork being the new thing we've never heard before is Bjork being the performer we've heard all the time. This is a musically and vocally boring album with all slow songs that are dull. And now that it has finished playing for the ninth time, my cats and I will gladly rid ourselves of it!

The best track is "Overture," the low point is "107 Steps," though there's not much else worth listening to outside perhaps "New World."

For other works by Bjork, please check out my reviews of:
Debut
Telegram
Homogenic

3/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Bjork's Homogenic; The Album I Was Most Prepared For Is Little Better Than The Others.

The Good: Moments of lyrics, voice, sound
The Bad: Much of the album is oversimplified, Much is bland and sounds already done (by Bjork),Short.
The Basics: Bjork rises up into average territory with an album that is poetic, but often more noisy and poorly vocalized.


Those who follow my reviews might wonder why I've spent the past few days in the Music section panning albums by Icelandic alternative/techno artist Bjork. Well, the truth is, I sat down a few weeks ago and decided to broaden my horizons. I had blown my mind by listening to the debut of Janis Ian (reviewed here!) and thought "This is phenomenal, I ought to explore something I've never given a real listen to before!" Bjork was a favorite of someone who was once very important to me and I liked the video for "All Is Full Of Love." So, Bjork seemed like a good choice.

With an Obi-Wan Kenobi delivery, I now say, "I was wrong." The prior albums of Bjork's I've heard and reviewed have presented Bjork as an artist with the new thing that is truly new, different and creepy and so unsettling as to be unlistenable. With Homogenic, I found a Bjork that was much more familiar, mundane and about the same overall quality as her other works.

With ten tracks clocking in at 43:37, Homogenic was the Bjork album I had heard the most from prior to hearing the album. I had seen the video for "All Is Full Of Love," and I know I had heard "Hunter," "Bachelorette" and "Joga" before this. Perhaps they had been on the "Greatest Hits" album, but Homogenic represents a rather pure vision of Bjork, at least as she was producing in 1997 when it was released. Eight of the songs were written by her, one was co-written by Bjork and the last was written by Sjon, who co-wrote "Joga" with her. She produced or co-produced all but two tracks and she played the keyboards on the album. She provides all of the primary vocals as well. So, it does seem reasonable to consider this Bjork's vision as an artist.

With Homogenic, Bjork passes outside alternative into a more regular style of techno/dance/pop, with tracks like "Bachelorette" and "Alarm Call." The result is an album that is easier to judge as a comparative work than some of Bjork's prior works. Unfortunately, the album also falls into a number of very formulaic pop-dance conceits that weaken the sense of originality Bjork usually brings to a work. The flipside of that is that what isn't formulaic dance-pop/techno-alternative is very distinctly Bjork with many of the weaknesses that entails.

As the album cycles into the eleventh playing on my player, I am struck first by the sound of it. The songs on Homogenic have remarkably similar sounds to one another. Musically, this is an album that has one - maybe two - imaginative sounds to it but then simply repeats or reworks the same formula on other tracks. So, there are songs like "Unravel" and "All Is Full Of Love" that utilize an orchestral sound - often fronted by a throbbing dance-beat to keep it from being a neo-classical music - and then there are songs like the keyboard heavy, ultra-produced "5 Years."

"5 Years" is a great example of where Homogenic goes wrong. The track sounds initially creative by replacing the traditional drums with scratching static to keep the beat. But the keyboards and harmony are hardly as imaginative and the result is just a pretty traditional pop song with a cool sounding beat, which makes it pretty much your average dance track.

And Bjork seems determined to fill the tracks up with sound. So, "Immature" has all sorts of beeping and some pulsing ring in it that sounds like computers or telephones gone awry. "Bachelorette" includes animal noises that are more annoying than intriguing and one of the more interesting tracks, "Alarm Call," is just so full of sound that it becomes jumbled and confused. One of the best pop-rock songs of all time, the B-52's "Love Shack" is arguably so great because it is so musically complex; there are at least four levels of sound going on at all times in the song (save the important pause). The track works because they are all working to create one larger theme. "Alarm Call" has a lot going on but it just seems busy and confused. So, right before Bjork begins growling through some of the last choruses, there is a potential wonderful musical moment where the primary vocal cuts out, there's the instrumentals, the background vocals saying "beep beep beep beep" and "Doesn't scare me at all" and then there's a "Oooh-oh-oh-oh-ooh" thrown in and on top of that is an annoying beeping noise. It's when that last sound comes in that the song collapses as a musical mess. It becomes Bjork's speaking in tongues.

As least "Alarm Call" has some build up before it goes bad. Musically, "Pluto" is a loss from the beginning and its traditional dance-techno beat and performance is quickly tiresome.

What is about as boring or troubling as the sound of most of the instrumentals and production elements on the album is the vocals. "Pluto" is especially screechy and annoying. Bjork begins presenting feedback-style scale progressions that are just noisy and unpleasant and they are not even musically interesting. Instead, it sounds like a woman screaming into the microphone and my reaction to that is "who cares?" It's not musical and it's not expressive and it does not say anything that relates even remotely to the lyrics.

That said, Homogenic also includes some of the most natural instances of Bjork's voice. "All Is Full Of Love" presents her voice in a clear and direct way and the song is quite beautiful. In fact, the only problem with the vocals on that song come back to the pronunciations. Bjork - like far too many artists who want to be a hit in the United States - insists on singing in English and the result does not always work. So, for example, "y's" especially come out awkward with a "d'j" sound often. And no matter how many times I hear "All Is Full Of Love," she mangles "Twist your head around" so badly that it always sounds like "Trust your head around" to me.

But with "All Is Full Of Love" and "Unravel" there is the sense that Bjork can actually sing when she is not being overproduced and drown out by production elements and instrumentals. Even "Alarm Call" has its moments - actually, it's mostly the background vocals that she provides that sell any vocal quality to the song - where vocally it comes through.

But more often than not, the album has the vocals altered by reverb, phase shifts or other production elements. This starts with the first track, "Hunter," where Bjork is meant to sound very far away and the effect is more unimpressive than she no doubt intended. And when her voice is brought to the forefront, it is presented with such overlapping reverb that it becomes more noisy than hypnotic. It's one of those songs I suspect people using something like LSD might appreciate more than sober folk.

On the subject of "Hunter," the listener of Homogenic is likely to be fairly unimpressed on the lyrical front. In this fashion, I find myself wishing Bjork were vastly more popular so there would be more parodies of her work out there. After all, whenever I hear Bjork earnestly repeating (over and over) "I'm going hunting / I'm the hunter" ("Hunter") I just hear a parody in my head singing "I'm doing some baking / I'm a baker" and "I'm preparing taxes / I'm the accountant." I mean wow, Bjork has mastered English enough to associate a hunter with hunting; no wonder she's huge with the club scene!

My point with this (other than that I was hoping to have this review done before the twelfth spinning of this disc began - and I failed) is that the lyrics are frequently dull on Homogenic, when they can be understood through the garbled vocal presentations. Sure, there are a few good lines like "I'm a fountain of blood . . . / In the shape of a girl" ("Bachelorette") and "All is full of love / You just ain't receiving" ("All Is Full Of Love"), but more often than not they are either obscured or dull.

On that subject, allusions - I was taught back when I was in writing classes training to be a writer - are only as good as the connection they make in the reader (in this case, listener). So when Bjork sings lines like ". . .[you will] Go astray / [like a] killer whale trapped in a bay" ("Bachelorette") the result is more baffling than poetic and cute. When I think of things that go astray, killer whales aren't even on the list! It's not a strong connection. Maybe in Iceland, but not in the U.S. It just doesn't work. It's either a bad allusion or weird for the sake of weird.

Actually, Homogenic is pulled up by some of the lyrics. "Unravel" is beautifully creative and truly poetic with lines like "While you are away / My heart comes undone / Slowly unravels / In a ball of yarn." It might be simple, but it is sweet and beautiful in its way.

But it's not enough to recommend Homogenic. The lyrics are better to read more than listening to the album, much like reading summaries of episodes of Enterprise is better than watching the episodes (I swear whenever they begin speaking on that show, it just dies). Bjork might be a poet here but she does not present the poetry well.

Even her best poetry on Homogenic is undermined by either the vocals or musical presentation (usually production elements that seek to make the sound of each song unnecessarily complex).

The best track is the simple and beautiful "All Is Full Of Love," the low point is the terrible, noisy and unredeemable "Pluto."

For other reviews by female Artist Of The Month artists, please check out my reviews of:
Hits & Rarities - Sheryl Crow
Educated Guess - Ani DiFranco
My Love: Ultimate Essential Collection - Celine Dion

5/10

For music reviews organized from best to worst, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Telegram From Bjork! Techno-Dance Remixes Make No Better An Album!

The Good: Moments of mildly interesting sound/voice
The Bad: Much of the album is utter noise, Lyrics are mostly indecipherable, Generic overproduced music, Dull
The Basics: Bjork whispers and growls her way through eleven songs remixed by others in ways that are largely traditional dance/techno remixes that bore the listener.


I will never be the chair of the Bjork fan club. I mean never, like if Armageddon came and the only beings left on Earth were Bjork, me and a tortoise that was impaled on flaming lobster claws, the tortoise would have a better chance of getting the position of fan club president to keep Bjork going. I've listened to four Bjork albums now and because I am reviewing them in chronological order, it might seem premature that I'm saying I don't like the music of Icelandic techno-alternative musician Bjork, but the truth is, I find it to be almost all utterly awful. I admire creativity in general, but with Telegram, a collection of remixed versions of Bjork songs, I've no problem saying that even the concept and creativity is gone. Bjork's music held up poorly on many of her albums the first time around; giving others a crack at it did not improve it.

With eleven tracks clocking in at 51:26, Telegram represents the culmination of weirdness in music; what happens when eleven artists take on Bjork's music and remix it. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a very pure listen on my part; I had not heard the original mixes of any of these tracks and thus, this is not a comparison between what was and what they became on Telegram, but rather exactly what appears on Telegram.

Overall, the album is a mess of techno-dance tracks and there is little to discuss as far as originality on this album. It seems like the pretty standard concepts for remixing tracks all come up on this album. Put a dance beat to it, electronically alter the voice, swap out instruments, add a rap, etc. The pretenses and conceits of the very standard remix all appear on these various tracks, making it far less original than a normal Bjork album.

Truth be told, Telegram gets off to a horrible start in this respect. "Possibly Maybe (Lucy Mix)" opens the album with electronic-altered vocals that take Bjork's voice and make it sound like a computerized hamster . . . being electrocuted. While other artists, like Moby, computerize vocals, the Lucy Mix takes it to such an extreme that it passes outside music and becomes a techno track that is almost indecipherable. The meaning of the lyrics is lost in the effect of making the track into something that is more produced than authentic.

As far as meaning goes, "Hyperballad (Brodsky Quartet Version)" is a real upper. Bjork sings of trying to keep mentally healthy and balanced and the exercises her musical protagonist goes through to achieve that. In the course of the song, she looks out from at the view from the mountaintop, contemplates physical objects in the rooms, but then she is ". . . still throwing things off / I listen to the sounds they make on their way down / I follow with my eyes until they crash / I imagine what my body would sound like / Slamming against those rocks . . ." ("Hyperballad"). It's cheerful lyrics like that that make one wonder why the track was remixed. To be fair, the Brodsky Quartet does an exceptional job with the strings in their version, creating actual music to accompany the creepy and surreal lines.

Musically, "Enjoy (Further Over Free Mix)" feels very much like a remix, with the percussion entirely performed with static. Yes, instead of drum beats, there is throbbing static that keeps the time and it is a technique I've heard on later Bjork albums and while I applaud the originality, between the static sound and the repeated line that opens the track, this is just a dull song.

And when Bjork and her remixers are not being dull, they are back to being quite purely weird. "My Spine" is performed with what sounds like cow bells (it is actually a series of exhaust pipes!) and fronts Bjork's surreal lilting voice. The truly esoteric aspect of Bjork's singing is that she does not quite have English pronunciations down right and as a result, there are elongated vowels and y's come out with a dj sound ("your" becomes "djour"). And this is another track where Bjork growls, which is not my favorite thing. The result is Bjork singing about her resolve and the song is an oddity, very purely Bjork.

I will say, though, that the dance track "I Miss You (Dobie Rub Part One-Sunshine Mix)" which is in many ways a very traditional mix, actually sounds good and it pretty much rocks. Bjork quite clearly provides the lyrics which open with a very simple, "I miss you / But I haven't met you yet" ("I Miss You") line and it goes from there. I call this a very traditional mix because it has a strong dance-beat and the song is interpolated with a rap in the last half and it just feels very common. The rap is a decent one, performed by Rodney P Of London Posse and perhaps it is the bland, non-threatening nature of the rap that appeals to me, but it keeps in the spirit of the rest of the song and does not use any language anyone might find objectionable.

Then there is the dance-beat nursery-rhyme to music "Isobel (Deodato Mix)" which carries a simple note progression and some of the most inane rhymes, making for a ridiculously simple song that feels childish and meaningless. Bjork's vocals on it have her in the soprano range and while she hits the notes fine, the vocal talents evident on the track are undermined by the silliness of the music and lyrics.

Bjork's most direct contribution to Telegram are "You've Been Flirting Again (Flirt Is A Promise Mix)" and the finale, "I Miss You (Original Mix)." "You've Been Flirting Again" has the sound and feel of a hymn mixed with a Bjork track. It has a quiet, slow building and a meditative, almost ponderous feel combined with vocals that are difficult to catch the lyrics out from. There is a sense of being very spiritual and the overall feeling is quite beautiful and it evokes a large space, filled with light filtering in from stained glass windows. All I caught, though of the lines was the oft-repeated "All that she meant was good / . . . All that she said was true" ("You've Been Flirting Again"). And then the song becomes a typical Bjork song wherein the vocals are drown out by the instrumentals, in this case the violins and produced strings of the orchestra. The final version of "I Miss You" offers an interesting contrast to the earlier mix and the computerized beats and overproduced nature make the remix a more enjoyable experience.

"Cover Me (Dillinja Mix)" illustrates that others can get in on the pure weirdness of Bjork and the produced techno-dance beats mix in keyboards and storm noises in a way that is designed to get the listener moving. The lines, like so many of the tracks, are obscured and the attempt to hear them is buggered by such things as a produced telephone noise ringing in the middle of the song. It is an unimaginative dance remix and it is one of the many reasons I am happy that when I finish this listen while I finish off this review that I will not have to ever hear this album again.

Almost as bad as the track that precedes it is "Army Of Me (Masseymix)" and it is at this point that I feel the need to plug a much better work. Moby's album Play: The B-Sides (reviewed here!) utilizes a lot of production elements and yet he manages to make everything in that two-disc set sound musical. The "Army Of Me (Masseymix)" sounds like it was constructed from noises in a war zone and the effect is less disconcerting or eerie and more annoying as the dance beat and sirens compete. I suppose it could be useful in giving one a headache if one ever needed music to do that. My point with the Moby reference is this: there are ways to utilize almost all of the mixing techniques used in "Army Of Me (Masseymix)" to create genuine music that is intriguing and clever and will endure. This mix, however, illustrates none of those qualities.

And finally, there is "Headphones (S Remix)" which is probably better than I think it is, but coming off the throbbing headache of the track that preceded it, it's difficult to listen bell-like synths and strain to hear Bjork's whispering voice. Whatever she is singing, drown out by the keyboards and the bass, is just not worth the effort needed to try to divine it.

That's what Telegram is ultimately; a big listening effort. It's either loud and cumbersome or quiet and pointless. Either way, I can't see the point and the only reason I am rating as high as I am is that repetition wore me down. Yes, the more I listened to it, the less I flat-out hated it (my first three listens, I was ready to write a scathing review with a 2 with the notation that it's probably a 2 1/2 out of 10) and now, after eight turns in my c.d. player Telegram ends and I'll admit there are tracks that are not so abysmal as to deserve to be wiped from the face of the Earth.

Listening to Telegram repeatedly is such a draining experience that I don't want hassle. That takes a lot to reduce me like that. Largley, though, this is an unremarkable album that is mostly unpleasant when it is insinuating or forcing itself upon the listener.

The best track is "I Miss You (Dobie Rub Part One-Sunshine Mix)" and the low point is "Army Of Me (Masseymix)."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Remember - Janis Ian
“Jackie’s Strength” (single) – Tori Amos
Any Day Now - Joan Baez

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Some Might Call It An Inspired Debut; I Call It Crap! (Bjork Is My New Artist Of The Month!)

The Good: Moments of voice, Moments of lyrics or sound
The Bad: Just terrible sound, production, voice, Indecipherable lyrics, Musically nightmarish, Crediting
The Basics: Bjork's Debut prioritizes being different over being musical and the album is a mess in too many places and one I am eager to not recommend to anyone who likes music!


We all write our reviews in different ways, from a different perspective. I listen to a compact disc at least five times before I write even a word of a review of it. Instead, I listen to an album over and over again and see how it resonates, how it is arranged, what stands out, what does not hold up over many listens, etc. I have gotten in a small pile of Bjork's c.d.s because I thought it would be good to expand my horizons and I had heard that she was a true original. I am now on my ninth listen to Debut and I am hoping quite strongly that I can finish this review before it clocks over into time ten.

I am one who reviews a lot of music and one of my persistent themes is that sometimes there is an artist that is "the new thing we've heard before." So, for example, on Fountains Of Wayne's Traffic And Weather (reviewed here!) the group is pushing the envelope in the same general direction as Barenaked Ladies did on Are Men (reviewed here!). There is a pretty constant quest in the music world to be successful and that is what usually compels those releasing something new to release an album that is "something new that we've heard before" instead of a true original. On Debut, Bjork presents something new that we've never heard before.

Unfortunately, it's just terrible.

With eleven tracks clocking in at 48:26, Debut presents the pop/dance stylings of Iceland's Bjork, a waifish eccentric artist who appears on the cover of the c.d. as a teary-eyed specter that seems to resemble current Michael Jackson. Scary. Bjork is going to take most of the credit - and blame - for this highly assembled album as she wrote or co-wrote every track, but one (according the the top of the disc - the liner notes do not have lyrics or writing credits). She plays the keyboards, arranged the brass section with one of the players, and produced or co-produced two of the tracks. As well, she provides the primary vocals on Debut. So, as it seems, this is her work the way she apparently wanted it.

It freaks me out how bad this album is. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of dance music. I can dig instrumental, remixes and orchestral works, but the heavy basslines, throbbing synths and dictatorial percussion of dance music often sets me off. The whole purpose of the music is largely to get one to move and it's often a very forced energetic form of movement that the music demands and it's more exercise than fun. Honestly, I'm not sure Bjork's alternative pop is truly considered dance, but given that most of the music seems to lean that way, it seems to fit.

First, what could pass from Debut? Well, there are hints of coherency and voice that come through on various tracks of Debut that imply that Bjork has talent. Is seems like she might be a decent soprano when she lets herself be, but more often she ventures into either the high alto range or just screeches. Those who might have been bothered by my defining Alanis Morissette's sound on Jagged Little Pill (reviewed here!) as shrieking ought to know that Morissette has nothing on Bjork's performance near the beginning of "Crying." There are musical moments where Bjork is downright painful. Oh, but this was supposed to be the positive section. On "Venus As A Boy," Bjork's voice comes through and illustrates a promise for the listener that leaves the listener feeling like the rest of the album might not be a wash.

And I want to give some serious, heartfelt credit to the originality of Bjork. Even on Debut, it is clear that she is doing her own thing and she has a perspective that is very different from most anyone else in music. I don't think there is anyone else who has recorded a track for a major label release from the toilets of a public space as Bjork does with "There's More To Life Than This."

Conceptually, "Venus As A Boy" has some moments where the lyrics are interesting and even clever. With sexually charged lyrics, Bjork sings about a man who has the powers of arousal and sophistication of the goddess of love. And it works. It's clever for a few moments and comprehensible and the idea of that much sensuality being locked into a man is an intriguing idea that no one else in music seems to feel free to explore.

The problems start in the lyrics and arrangement and the intensity of the song that guts its purpose and magic. "Venus As A Boy" is a great example; she sings some of the lines with a revelatory tone when she is singing "He's Venus as a boy!" after she has sung the line several times before. It's almost like Bjork expects it to be new and different again after she has already revealed the big "reversal" within the lyrics. By the time the build-up in the lyrics gets to the point where it truly would be a revelation, the listener has already heard it and the reaction is more "yeah, we got that, what else do you have for us?"

Vocally, Bjork is all over the map. She goes high, she goes low. On "There's More To Life Than This" right around the two minute mark, she growls. Not a sexy growl, but a dog-like feral growl that is unpleasant to the ears. But with tracks like "Like Someone In Love," possibly the most traditional sounding track (it has a lullaby/nightclub feel to it), Bjork gives a straightforward vocal presentation where her natural voice dominates the front spectrum of sound, selling her innate talent. At least, until the three minute mark where she begins to stretch her notes and words out for a section that makes for a contrast that undermines the inherent beauty of her voice on the rest of the song.

But the vocal quality on "Like Someone In Love" is clearly the exception to the rule on Debut. Opening with "Human Behavior," a track so overproduced that her natural voice barely comes through, listeners are left wondering what truly is Bjork's voice. Many of the tracks, like "Big Time Sensuality" and "Violently Happy" provide vocal performances that have no center. They are vocals clearly enhanced by production elements and twisted into something far away from a natural voice that one stops caring about the words because the level of production is so overbearing that whatever is being sung has a disingenuous quality to it. So, for example, on "Big Time Sensuality" when Bjork (apparently) sings about the joys of having real beauty and sex appeal (she gets growly when she's not being produced over) there is nothing sensual about her vocal performance. Instead, her message is incongruent with her presentation and the song just becomes about getting people to dance or move.

I write "apparently" when discussing the lyrics because most of the album is gibberish. The vocal presentations are so garbled on many of the tracks that Bjork is almost entirely indecipherable. After nine listens, I still catch new lyrics and I am pretty sure that I'm not getting all of the lines right. The problematic vocal aspect of this is that Bjork's pronunciation of English words on Debut are not all that good. Before some readers take offense to that, allow me to say this: I don't know why she is obsessed with singing in English. Finland, for example, has a very active rock/pop/metal/dance scene of people who sing in Finnish. Are they known the world around? No, but they are very popular there. My point with this apparent digression is this: Bjork's obvious discomfort with the English language on the pronunciation level (there are a lot of "dj" sounds for "y"'s for example and elongated vowels with odd stresses) makes me wonder why she bothered to even record in English. Unless it was a commercial decision, in which case I think it cheapens her integrity as an artist, but that's just me.

Either way, the lyrics are presented in a garbled fashion and lacking liner notes, it's difficult to tell what she's singing on many of the songs. What does come through it that many of the songs, like "Human Behaviour" and especially "There's More To Life Than This" are terribly repetitive. The same lines get repeated over and over again with throbbing baselines and heavy synths and degenerate into a hypnotic quality.

Even the more comprehensible lines, like Bjork opening "Aeroplane" with "I cannot live peacefully without you / For even a moment / I miss you terribly when you're away . . ." quickly become lost to a garbled sound that loses the words that Bjork is singing. But it seems Debut focuses on more philosophical things like the nature of existence ("There's More To Life Than This"), longing ("Aeroplane"), and the joys of being sexual ("Venus As A Boy" and "Big Time Sensuality"). The problem is, so many of the lyrics cannot be easily understood that their impact is truly lost.

This brings us to the music on Debut. When it isn't being straightforward dance or straightforward vocal pop, the songs are just weird. So, for example, "Aeroplane" has animal noises on it. But most of the album is keyboards, programming, drums, bass and guitar dominating Bjork's waifish vocals. "Come To Me" has a remarkably simple pop beat with minimal melody but even the strings and programming drown out most of Bjork's voice, making it yet another difficult to listen to track.

And the whole album is like that. It's electronic, it's dance, it's quietly eccentric and noisy and it obscures any genuine talent or artistry that Bjork might possess. And it is painfully unlike anything musical I've ever heard and I'm glad to be sending this one back. There's good weird out there; Debut is not it.

The best track is possibly the simplistic "Like Someone To Love," the low point is the thematic mess and atonal drecht that is "Violently Happy."

For other, former, Artist Of The Month works, please check out my reviews of:
The Beginning Of Survival - Joni Mitchell
Luck Of The Draw - Bonnie Raitt
Britney Jean (Deluxe Edition) – Britney Spears

3/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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