I’m a Bjork fan, and I will admit that she’s not necessarily that accessible. Then again, I like Tricky, who, despite being one of the founders of the trip-hop movement, isn’t accessible to most people either. Very primal rhythms and pot and odd sound effects thrown in for measure. If you start with Debut, Post, or Gling-Glo (she does covers of jazzy tunes and some traditional Icelandic songs), you might be able to warm up to the other stuff. I happen to be a fan of the Sugarcubes stuff and everything up to Homogenic (haven’t bought the other albums), but I also grew up listening to it as it came out. Like the Gypsy Kings, it grows on you if you let it.
Kalhoun: She’s a bit quirky, overdoes her accent (seriously!), needs to start making her own clothes again (those designers just don’t do her justice), and looks slightly more like a baby seal than I do. I can understand the appeal, but she’s had some dramatic ways of behaving in the past 20 years.
I love Bjork. Love her, love her, love her. I get giddy and bubbly when I see her on TV. Her music just really resonates with me. Her videos are always wonderful and strange and beautiful, and I think she is just amazingly pretty. She’s like a fairy, so magical and lighter than air, and I love her nose. . . ah, Bjork! She and Patti Smith are like my personal matriarchs.
Any Bjork fan just HAS to check out the Space Ghost episode with her and Thom Yorke. It’s called “Kinfin Around” and it’s absolutely ridiculously hilarious. I don’t know if the DVD is out yet, but it might be.
“Look, marriage is about hiding in the kudzu behind your apartment, and not going in until the lights are completely out.”
Her name sounds like the sound you make when you hoist yourself off a vinyl couch naked.
She is not pop enough for my tastes. If she had any commerical sense/lack of shame she could be huge®. She has proven she can sing extremely well – Birthday is my favorite song ever, and surely doesn’t have much going for it beyond the singing – but chooses not to.
Emiliana Torrini, OTOH, is almost as good a singer, but doesn’t mind copying the “all-out” style of singing Bjork can do but doesn’t, due to boredom, or experimentation, not taxing the vocal cords, or what have you. I listen to Emiliana a lot more than Bjork.
Or the sound I make when subjected to her music.
There’s a Dutch young female singer, Bloem de Ligny, who says Bjork is the bane of her existance.
She looks a bit like Bjork, her voice resembles that of Bjork, and they are both independent and quirky singer-songwriter-producers who started singing around the same time. But everybody who hears Bloem immediately calls her the Dutch Bjork and supposes she is a Bjork clone.
I can imagine it is a little tough on her. There’s only one Bjork-shaped niche in the pop-music world where Bloem would fit in, and that one is already filled by Bjork. 
Just chiming in to say that I like Bjork, too. I’ve got the Sugarcubes “Life’s Too Good” CD and her solo CD “Vespertine”. I’ve meant to check out “Debut” and “Post” but I’ve never gotten around to it. (I reeaaally like “Vespertine”, though.)
How is “Bloem” pronounced? If, as I suspect, it is pronounced “Blem” with a short e, that’s a big negative factor right there. Bjork has a nice woody sound to it. Blem is dreadfully tinny.
Now, if it is pronounced more like “Blow-'em” I have no idea why she isn’t wildly popular.
I’ve got Homogenic and Vespertine and like them both, but I don’t listen to them very frequently or really follow Bjork’s career. I did just order Volta however, kind of on a whim. I read a few reviews and something about it just sounded very intriguing to me.
I saw what she and Barney came up with, and it sucked. I’m a huge fan of the Cremaster films, but Drawing Restraint 9 was godawful.
The comparison with Joanna Newsom was apt–in addition to the similarity in voices, they both have a habit of going for the weird-for-weird’s-sake vibe.
[/not a fan of Bjork]
Mike Myers’ description of her as “Keeblerian” in Wayne’s World was just perfect.
That’s awesome. I call children “keeblers” all the time. I need to remember this for my next Bjork conversation.
From the good folks over at Brunching Shuttlecocks, I give you [The Bjork Song](www.sirblah.com/misc/Brunching Shuttlecocks - Bjork Song.mp3).
And while we’re on the subject, a selection from the NSA eavesdropping tapes: Matthew Barney and Bjork place an IKEA phone order. It’s so accurate it must be true!
I would really be interested in your definition of experimental, then! Have you heard the Medulla album?
Bwahaha!
Those people at Ikea have a great schtick going - say something breaks (which wouldn’t be surprising, since most of it is pretty cheap) (although the design is nice) — good luck finding the receipt to return it. “Hmm, was that the feeolkj? Or the pooellr? Maybe the yarrn?” “Damned if I know, just pitch it.”
This got me laughing so dang hard, I was snorting.
While I am one of the few who think Einar was the best bit in the Sugarcubes (“I don’t like lobster!”), I like Bjork, and she makes good vid, too. I go a long way for a good vid with my music, and some of hers are classics. “Human Behaviour” is my favourite.