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With Björk touring the UK now – check out the setlist from last night’s Hammersmith Apollo show here – DiS has chosen to explore the Icelandic maverick’s back catalogue to produce an editor’s-choice Top Ten from across the spectrum of the singer’s work to date.
Since emerging to critical acclaim with 1993’s Debut, which was NME’s top album of the year, and won its maker Best International Female and Best International Newcomer at the follow year’s BRIT Awards, Björk has consistently inspired new artists to twist regular pop formulas to suit their own moulds, while always pushing her own work into new areas. Her last LP, 2007’s Volta, was another success both critically and commercially: it breached the US top ten and attracted great reviews from almost across the board (DiS awarded it 8/10 here).
Here’s Mike Diver’s (hello, I’m writing my own name… weird) Top Ten in videos, followed by a slight diversion from John Doran, editor of DiS sibling site The Quietus.
From Selmasongs (2000) (Dancer In The Dark OST)
Note: video and audio are not synchronised
9. ‘Pluto’
From Homogenic (1997)
Note: video footage used on 2004 Greatest Hits tour; no ‘official’ video
8. ‘Hyperballad’
From Post (1995)
7. ‘Jóga’
From Homogenic (1997)
6. ‘Pagan Poetry’
From Vespertine (2001)
Note: graphic video unsuitable for minors
5. ‘Venus As A Boy’
From Debut (1993)
4. ‘Army Of Me’
From Post (1995)
3. ‘Bachelorette’
From Homogenic (1997)
2. ‘Unravel’
From Homogenic (1997)
Note: video footage used on 2004 Greatest Hits tour; no ‘official’ video
1. ‘Harm Of Will’
From Vespertine (2001)
Note: live footage from the Royal Opera House
Agree? Disagree? What, no Volta or Medulla tracks? Only two from DiS’s Our 66 winner Vespertine? (Click here for more on that.) I’d explain my choices but the songs say so much more than any of my words could – just listen, yeah? Yeah. Before you argue the toss below, though, a brief interlude from John Doran…
Video: The Sugarcubes, ‘Birthday’
My favourite song of hers is 'Birthday' by The Sugarcubes. It had just become this word-of-mouth sensation halfway through 1987 thanks to constant rotation by John Peel. I went to see them play in Manchester when I was 16 that year, and it was the most violent gig I have ever been to.
Björk was perhaps the most beautiful person I had ever seen, and she looked like this weird droplet of sunshine on stage at the International confronted by a really thuggish crowd made up mainly of punks, goths and psychobillies for some reason.
Towards the end they played 'Birthday' and you could tell it was what people were there to hear. They went fucking crazy. Someone was obviously spitting at Einar (Örn Benediktsson, vocals and trumpet). And at the end of the song he noticed that there was phlegm dripping off his black top. He said something along the lines of: "Is that what you do in Manchester? Mancunians? Is that what they do? Is that what they call you, Mancunians? Fucking scum." And all the while he was tearing his T-shirt to bits.
We'd come over in a mini-bus from Liverpool and as soon as I heard the stuff about Mancunians I knew we were fucked. Fights broke out. The bouncers waded into the crowd. People started kicking and punching each other in the head while the band ploughed through 'Deus'.
At the end of the gig my best friend Stu had his T-shirt ripped off, his trousers ripped off. He was just stood there in his black briefs and DMs with blood pouring out of his nose and down his chest. Another friend got knocked unconscious and one of our party had bad concussion for a week. I was very flexible due to the amount of Special Brew I used to eat in those days and quite floppy. I didn't sustain any injury and had a thoroughly good gig.
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