Homologous Legs

Since I’m floundering about what I should write about next in terms of science or philosophy (I was tossing up about the definition of “function” in biology, but the literature is far too dense for me to get through), I thought I would share another insight into the world of my favourite music. Last time it was the violin-plucking indie rocker Andrew Bird, and this time it’s Björk, everyone’s favourite Icelandic icon.

Now I fully admit that Björk can be hard to get into. Friends of mine are quite familiar with my “Björk journey”, in which it took me four full listens of her entire discography in order to start to realise that the music was actually good. In fact, I was listening to her 2004 album Medúlla for the first time a couple of years back, before one of my sister’s choir concerts (quite appropriate, actually), just sitting in the car thinking “What the hell am I listening to? This is actually really scary – and not in a good way.” That thought didn’t go away until a few weeks later – for some reason, it all started to make sense.

What I’m saying is: don’t expect to like her music when you first listen to it. I’ll try and select some more accessible tracks for you here, but even these might be taxing for people not used to listening to music outside their comfort zone. Listener beware.

So, characteristics of the music itself. Björk’s style is hard to define, as she often switches between genres within albums, and each song rarely contains elements from only one genre. The only real constant is her vocals, which really ground each track and remind you, as you listen to her discography, that it’s all coming from one person – this is all her music. I suppose another characteristic is dense instrumentation and layering, although that’s not true for all her tracks.

I could take you right now on a journey through each of her albums, starting with her 1993 debut Debut (haha, Björk, haha) and ending with her latest, Biophilia, but there are just too many albums to get through, so I’ll only share four songs (far too few, I know) – a selection of my favourites that I’m relatively certain most people won’t find repulsive on a first listen. But, of course, your mileage may vary.

Let’s still do it chronologically (in terms of composition) though, shall we?

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Since I’m floundering about what I should write about next in terms of science or philosophy (I was tossing up about the definition of “function” in biology, but the literature...