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Björk

I can't believe I was only fifteen years old when I first heard of Björk. I hadn't heard of the Sugarcubes then, her first major breakthrough outfit at that point and in fact, I'm still not a fan. From the very start, I knew there was something very unique about her, her voice, her weird videos, the off-kilter pop sounds. It was magical, scary and compelling. My first taste of Björkness came in the shape of the Human Behavior video which I got to see late at night on television (I used to watch a lot of MTV at the time, back in the days, where it was mostly music being shown and not a bunch of silly shows). The video went hand in hand with the weirdness of the music and I couldn't look away. This music didn't sound anything like what I was listening to at the time, but it's uniqueness hit home straight away. I don't remember buying her first album right away though. I think that came after her quick rise to fame after the release of Post. I followed her career closely from her first album to the release of Homogenic, but somewhat lost touch after that. Not that I found her less interesting, but she had become so huge that hearing her everywhere turned me off (yes, she did turn me on, that scandinavian charm can get to me)!

It was also at this point that I started noticing how well surrounded she was, the Madonna of underground pop music. The artists she chose to work with read like a list of the crème de la crème of the underground scene: from the glitchy soundscapes of Markus Popp (aka Oval), the drum'n'bass fad and short term partner that was Goldie, the bizarre poetry of indie filmmaker Harmony Korine and the madman vocals of Mike Patton to name a few. It's interesting to see her progression as an artist. As time went by, she would slowly find comfort in darker and more bizarre territory and the huge fan base she had gained throughout the years would slowly thin out as her sound got more experimental and at times even disturbing. Her teaming up with media artist Matthew Barney, who is also her current life partner, probably pushed her further into the realms of the obscure as her music continues to become more and more difficult with each new release.

I used to own almost all of her albums but sold everything when came time to move to Sweden back in 2003. I was planning to get them all back and it came close on more than one occasion, especially when I found them all on special at one point, but decided to buy other stuff instead. It was only on a trip to a local record store, with the intent of getting my three favorite Slayer albums, that I decided to buy the Surrounded box set (which I didn't even know existed) instead. Finally I can cross her of my list of "to get" albums.

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