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

I am enjoying going through the process of listening to the discography, as generally I will listen to a new Bjork album quite a bit then permanently shelve it by the next year. There's so much good stuff post-Vespertine that I'd completely forgotten about.

I love seeing this belated realisation that Biophilia is actually pretty good, it felt like I was the only one who liked it at the time!

Not sure if I should vote in this since I have this weird thing with Bjork in that I like three of her albums a lot and the rest I don't really care for.

As long as Biophilia is one of them, vote away!

the ilx biophilia thread is extremely depressing

Album that I am coming to realise is probably my favourite: Vespertine
Album that I am coming to realise I don't really like that much: Post

i haven't been in the right mood for vespertine all month, idk why

Yeah I’m not big on post - too inconsistent style wise, prefer telegram - challop perhaps.

Aurora rules and I neglected to vote for it. Thread makes me want to relisten to biophilia which arrived at a time when I cared little about Bjork and the app seemed distracting

prefer telegram - challop perhaps

kinda yeah it is, i think, those aren't even her best remixes from the post era

Killer versions of possibly maybe and cover me tho

the dillinja "cover me" is v good yes

I think of Post vs. Homogenic sort of the same way Stevie Wonder referred to Talking Book vs. Innervisions. The former, in each case, is a collection of great songs that maybe doesn't quite hang together as an album.

Post is good but doesn't really hang together as an album and only Hyperballad really reaches the peaks of Vespertine and Homogenic

i don't think that's true at all

album has "possibly maybe" and "isobel" on it ffs

What you might be missing about "Post" is that you have to put it into the context of her career. When you listen to it now, it might sound scattered, but when it came out, it suggested 11 different and distinct possible future directions for her. Much of the thrill of listening to it was anticipating her next move, hearing so many different possibilities on display

I mean, "Homogenic" was titled as such almost as a reaction to "Post"'s eclecticism. Eclecticism looks good on a Bjork album imo! Vespertine's best moments imo ("Cocoon", "An Echo, A Stain") are the songs that diverge from the album's thesis

i think that's still possible to hear now, or at least that's the vibe i accessed when i put it on immediately after debut xp

singular bjork (debut) becomes multibjork (post) becomes hypercompressed multibjork (homogenic)

fgti is otm but i still prefer the consistency of homogenic or vespertine, then and now

Biophilia is better than Volta

Yep even though it's not represented in what I voted for, this has been my big realization from this thread, and I've enjoyed discovering Biophilia.

Gonna listen to this today (Vespertine b-sides):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whnnJ6WKRA

Debut is also hugely eclectic. I just feel like Post is a few amazing tracks and the rest are not exactly filler, but just not up to the standard of the LPs before and after.

Vespertine and Volta are the LPs I missed at the time (aside from the singles) and now sound wonderful and fresh.

I think Talking Book similarly intended to carry on with Music of My Mind's sense of boundless possibility/eclecticism.

volta was such a huge disappointment. caught the tour and she was on fire though, declare independence was way more of a rave-up live and she was doing cool stuff with tech and kaos pad like devices at the time. wanderlust in my top bjork songs ever tho

Debut begins eclectic, and then starts to sound stylistically monothematic-- I said so upthread-- "The Anchor Song" appears like whaaat? after a run of relaxing-in-a-hotel-lobby songs

I hate "Declare Independence" as much as I hate "My Girls"-- corny individualism masquerading as romance

dunno, declare independence at least sounded fun, unlike the rest of volta which is laboured af - i mean drawing restraint 9 came before it which is basically trash

Or in Bjork's case, protest song

In the wake of a financial crisis in which Iceland milked millions of dollars from German, English and Dutch small businesses (via IceSave) to essentially finance their own zero-emission geothermal paradise, with a Range Rover in every driveway, a song by an woman from that blessed country of 350k people claiming that we should all declare independence from our respective states and make our own flags really made me wanna take a literal shit on a physical copy of that album

Uh sorry, when I dislike a song I really kind of pull no punches

I love Bjork she rules

passion makes this place great so i'm all for it bud

The main problem with "Declare Independence" is that it's not "Pluto." At all.

Declare Independence has very corny lyrics but it's easily the standout of Volta anyway.

my response to lyrical approach on volta is, like, “oh, ok, REALLY?” for almost the whole thing

still vividly remember staggering up to a coffeeshop counter in disbelief upon first hearing "Pluto"

"is this.... Bjork??"

biophilia’s clunky sjon lyrics about cells dividing were a real relief

the song on volta about terrorism is clumsy

Haven't been paying attention to the lyrics on Volta, just the instrumentation. Declare Independence is perhaps the worst track on there.

the lowest point for me on volta is "innocence" which sounds like a track timbo and danja couldn't even get onto loose

innocence sounds dated on arrival

this is wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viX7tcKXehY

I hate "Declare Independence" as much as I hate "My Girls"-- corny individualism masquerading as romance

What really sold me on this song was Lotic dropping the instrumental in his Boiler Room mix, it sounded insane in that context

I love Timbaland's production on "Earth Intruders" and "Innocence" but feel the songs are too weak for me to want to listen to them. I had no songs from "Volta" on my ballot. When it came out I found myself wanting to like it, to defend it, but happily, subsequent albums made me realize that it was a misstep in her latter-day arc and that I can safely forget about it

i feel like one of the ideas on volta (homogenic but horns instead of strings) is really good, but when combined with the other way less good ideas it just makes for a really confused and confusing record

it wasn't a bad idea but none of the tracks that went for that really live up to the idea, like Wanderlust is just tedious.

It was cool to see an all-female brass band in full costume on that tour, and the reworkings of non-Volta tracks was great

In fact, any reworking of a catalog track with "this year's touring lineup" is always a highlight for me, she could really just put together a tour with all new instrumentation and no new album and it'd be prob her best-ever tour

i love Bjork but i'm not voting, more interested in the rollout to dig into the decent chunk of her career that I didn't follow closely.

our son is a fan of Bjork ever since we were in line at the Amoeba buy counter and a woman in front of us who was selling her son's CD collection at his request noticed him staring at the cover of Volta which was on top of the box, and she asked him, "Would you like this CD?" We listened to it in the car and he was amazed. He also really likes this:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ao5Sd6BCK4

this is a nice rework - harpischord version of Aurora in Icelandic, according to comments her daughter is in the choir too

Does anyone rep for the Dirty Projectors collab?

(I enjoy it)

ok Vespertine b-sides are amazing

yes they are

Foot soldier! Mother heroic