I saw Björk once in a fish market in Reykjavík. She was buying fish. Observing Björk in her natural habitat does not normalise her. It's like the bit in Mars Attacks where the Martian spy disguises himself as a human woman—both are too otherworldly to quite pull off blending in. Björk was born different. It's not the case that all Icelanders have Inuit features—most of them look Aryan—so kids at school called her China Girl. She embraced her otherness, forging a path with it, never forsaking integrity or independence, never dressing down. Twenty years ago this month, she released her first solo album. Her first as an adult, in any case: she's been troubling the music industry for almost 40 years, and has been distressing me for many of them. I generally regard myself as emotionally stable, but I stick Björk on and the lie disintegrates. Her emotions burst through her vocals, like her body can't contain her. If she's in my earphones I cry in supermarkets, my withered brain synapses glitching all too easily. It's musical telepathy—I feel what she's feeling. She's E.T., I'm Elliott. Or the other way round. Not sure. She's worked with the greatest fashion designers, photographers, and producers. Time and again the likes of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry have directed her videos. She's said sex and music offer similarly instinctive experiences, and as if to maximize her pleasure, she's had relationships with many of her collaborators. She is everybody's muse. Here's why. 1977 She was offered an album deal after a teacher sent a recording of her singing to a radio station. Björk's mother said yes on her behalf. The resulting folk-disco collection (including this adorable cover of “The Fool On The Hill”), went platinum and made her a star. She was 11. Her mother designed the album cover. Her mother is a hippie. Can you tell? 1980s She then went full-skank for Kukl. Signing to a label run by anarchist English band Crass, they toured Europe in a transit van, stopped bathing, lived on bread, and slept in squats. She replaced her locks with a ballsy buzzcut and in 1986 they performed on Icelandic TV with a heavily pregnant Björk baring her belly. This was too much for some viewers. Many complained; one old lady had a heart attack. Björk 1, Society 0. 1993 1997 The Homogenic cover was the beginning of a magically nutballs partnership. McQueen directed the video for Homogenic's “Alarm Call,” in which Björk fondles a snake and turns into a piranha, and they continued to work together: he designed the stunning topless dress featured in “Pagan Poetry,” the feathered wonder she wore for Fashion Rocks, accessorized with her diamond-studded visage (top), and her somewhat impractical bell outfit for “Who Is It” (middle). Her performance of “Gloomy Sunday” at his funeral (bottom), in which she wore McQueen-created wooden wings and an ostrich-feather skirt, was a heartwrencher. In 2000 Björk starred in Lars Von Trier's Dancer In The Dark, the saddest film in the world. She found it hard to separate herself from her unmercifully doomed character, which made for fraught filming: “I think I became her for two years. As far as I'm concerned, last summer I killed a man,” she said a year later. Her relationship with Lars did not develop quite as well as her one with McQueen: she said he had scant regard for her psychological wellbeing and destroyed her soul. Legend has it she got so upset she ate her cardigan. After the film Björk retreated to Iceland to make Vespertine. An introverted ode to domestic bliss and her newfound love with artist Matthew Barney, its smallness is immense, and it's incredibly intimate. “Who would have known/That a boy like him/Would have entered me lightly/Restoring my blisses,” she sang on “Cocoon,” stripping off for the promo. Meanwhile the animated sex in the "Pagan Poetry" video is rumoured to be DV footage she shot of herself and Barney. The whole Vespertine project was basically one big lovegasm. The swan dress (by Marjan Pejoski) she wore on the cover designed to reflect Vespertine's wintery theme, was the same one she wore for the 2001 Oscars, where she also, casually, laid an egg on the red carpet. “It's just a dress,” said Björk. 2004 Medúlla climaxed with “Triumph Of A Heart,” for which Spike Jonze directed this video of Björk running away from her cat-husband to get drunk. Photo by Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vindooh Matadin. 2007 2011 NOW If you see a man in the fresh fruit aisle getting emotional with a grapefruit, don't worry, it's just Alex listening to Bjork. He also wrote this amazing history of Prince. He's on Twitter - @MrGodfrey. Style Stage is an ongoing partnership between Noisey & Garnier Fructis celebrating music, hair, and style. |