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09-23 Bjork share Ancestress
09-14 Bjork unveils Ovule
09-06 Bjork shares Atopos
11-15 New Bjork Song!
09-24 Bjork unveils 'The Gate'
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Björk is a mononym of Björk Guðmundsdóttir (b. 21 Nov 1965), an Icelandic singer-songwriter,composer,musicproducerandoccasionalactress,whose work includes eight solo albums and two film soundtracks.She is known for including elements of rock, jazz, electronic, classical, industrial, ethereal wave and trip-hop music inherwork.Hervoicehasalsobeen acclaimed for its distinctive qualities. In 2010, she won the Polar Music Prize in recognition ofher"deeply personalmusicandlyrics,herprecise arrangements and her unique voice".Her record label, One Little Indian, reported in 2003 that she had sold ...read more
Björk is a mononym of Björk Guðmundsdóttir (b. 21 Nov 1965), an Icelandic singer-songwriter,composer,musicproducerandoccasionalactress,whose work includes eight solo albums and two film soundtracks.She is known for including elements of rock, jazz, electronic, classical, industrial, ethereal wave and trip-hop music inherwork.Hervoicehasalsobeen acclaimed for its distinctive qualities. In 2010, she won the Polar Music Prize in recognition ofher"deeply personalmusicandlyrics,herprecise arrangements and her unique voice".Her record label, One Little Indian, reported in 2003 that she had sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.Shehasbeennominatedfor13Grammy Awards, an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards (including one for acting).Forherperformancein Dancer intheDark,Björk won the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. She was ranked #36onVH1’s "The100Greatest Women in RockandRoll"and #8 on MTV’s "22 Greatest Voices in Music".Björk was born and raised in Reykjavík, Iceland. Her musical career began when she was eleven with herstudyofclassicalpianoinelementaryschool. One of her instructors sent a recording of Björk singing Tina Charles’ song 'I Love to LovetoRÚV',then theonlyradiostation in Iceland.The recording was broadcast on national radio - after hearing it, a representativeoftheFálkinnlabelcontactedGuðmundsdóttir, to offer arecord contract, and Björk was recorded and released in 1977. InNovember1979,hereponymousfirst album wasreleased; the recordcontained covers of several pop songs, including 'The Fool ontheHill' and boastedartworkfrom her motherand guitarwork from herstepfather. Björk became a hit within Iceland and wasnotreleased in any othercountry.Björk’s musical tastes were changed by the punk revolution of the late ’70s; in 1979, she formed a post-punkgroupcalledExodusand,inthefollowing year, she sang in Jam 80.In her teens, Björk was influenced by punk; at 14 she formed the all-girl punk band Spit and Snot, shortlyfollowedbythejazzfusiongroup,Exodus in 1979. In 1980 she graduated from music school. In 1981 she and bassist JakobMagnússonformedanotherbandcalledJam-80,which later became Tappi Tíkarrass (which means "Cork the Bitch’s Ass" in Icelandic),andreleasedan extended single,'BítiðFast íVítið' in thesame year. Their next album, Miranda, was released in 1983.Afterward, Björk collaborated with Einar Örn Benediktsson and Einar Melax from PurrkurPillnikk,andGuðlaugurÓttarsson,SigtryggurBaldursson,and Birgir Mogensen from Þeyr. After writing songs and rehearsing for twoweeks, thenewband,KUKL("sorcery" in Icelandic),developed a sounddescribed as gothic rock. Björk began to show indications ofhertrademark singingstyle,whichwas punctuated by howlsand shrieks.KUKL toured Iceland with anarchist UK punk band, Crass, and later visited the UK in a series of performanceswithFluxofPinkIndians.Theyproduced two albums as a result of these collaborations: The Eye in 1984, and HolidaysInEurope in1986,bothon CrassRecords.The band was eventually dissolved, in part due to the closure of their label, Gramm. In mid-1986, severalmembersofKUKLandthesurrealistgroup, Medusa, got together to create the arts collective Smekkleysa (Bad Taste). They createdamusicaldivision, abandagaincalled KUKL,but soon changed the name to The Sugarcubes.Björk first came to prominence as one of the lead vocalists of the avant-pop Icelandic sextet the The Sugarcubes,butwhenshelaunchedasolocareer after the group’s 1992 demise, she quickly eclipsed her old band’s popularity. Instead offollowingintheSugarcubes’ artyguitarrockstyles, Björk immersed herself in dance and club culture, working with many of the biggestnamesinthegenre, includingNelleeHooper,Underworld, and Tricky. Debut, her first solo effort (except for an Icelandic-only smashreleasedwhenshe was just 11yearsold), notonly established her new artistic direction, but it became aninternational hit, makingher one ofthe ’90s mostunlikely stars.The Sugarcubes became one of the rare Icelandic bands to break out of their native country when their debut album,Life'sTooGood,became a British and American hit in 1988. For the next four years, the group maintained asuccessfulcultfollowingintheU.K. and the U.S.while they were stars within Iceland. During 1990, Björk recorded a set of jazzstandardsandoriginals withanIcelandicbebop group calledBjörk Guðmundsdóttir & tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar. The album, Gling-Gló,was released only inIceland.By 1992,tensions betweenBjörk and Einar had grown substantially, which resulted in thebandsplittingapart.Following the breakup of the group, Björk moved to London, where she began pursuing a dance-oriented solocareer.Thepreviousyear,shehadsung on 'Ooops', which sparked her interest in club and house music. She struck up aworkingrelationship withNelleeHooper, aproducerwhohad formerly worked with Soul II Soul and Massive Attack. The first resultoftheir partnership wasHumanBehaviour whichwasreleasedin June of 1993. The title track became a Top 40 hit in theU.K.,setting the stage for thesurprisingnumber three debut of the full-lengthalbum, Debut. Throughout 1993, Björk hadhit U.K.singles — including 'Venus as aBoy','Big Time Sensuality', and the non-LP'PlayDead',a collaboration with DavidArnold taken fromthe film Young Americans — as wellasmodern rock radio hits in the U.S. She earnedravereviewsin bothcountries. At the end ofthe year, NME magazine namedDebut the albumof the year. Additionally, she won BRITAwardsforbothInternational FemaleSolo Artist and Newcomer.Debut went gold in the U.S. andplatinum in the U.K.During 1994, Björk was relatively quiet as she recorded her second album with Nellee Hooper, Tricky, 808 State’sGrahamMassey,andHowieBofMo’ Wax Records. She also released a remix EP, co-wrote the title track for Bedtime Stories,andperformed on MTVUnpluggedthatsameyear.'Army Of Me', the first single from Björk’s forthcoming album, Post,wasreleased as a teaser singlein the spring of1995.Itdebuted atnumber ten in the U.K. and became a moderate alternativerockhit in the U.S. Post, hersecond full-length soloalbum,wasreleased in Juneof 1995 and garnered positive reviews.It peakedat number two in the U.K. andnumber 32 in the U.S. Postmatcheditspredecessor interms of sales andpraise, going gold inthe U.S. and helping her earnher second BRIT Award for BestInternationalFemaleArtist. It yieldedtheBritish hit singles 'Isobel'(#23), 'It's Oh So Quiet' (#4) and'Hyperballad' (#8). Despite hercommercial success intheUK, hersingles failed tomake muchheadway on American radio or MTV.In late 1996, she released Telegram, an album of radically different remixes of the entire Post album,intheU.K.ItsAmericanreleasefollowed in January 1997.Homogenic was released on 23 September 1997 and spawned many remix releases in the next few years to follow.In the spring of 2000, she was named Best Actress by jurors at the Cannes Film Festival for her work in Lars von Trier’sPalmed’Or-winningDancer in the Dark. Selmasongs, her score for the film, reunited Björk with herHomogeniccollaborator, MarkBell,andarrivedinFall of 2000, just in time for Dancer in the Dark’s U.S. release.The full-length follow-up, Vespertine, was released one year later. Verspertine featuredcollaborationswithelectronicduoMatmos,whohandled intricate micro-beats while Björk layered her voice in melodic, lyricalpassages.She released a Greatest Hits collection and the Family Tree box set late in 2002.After performing a few dates in 2003, Björk worked on her all-vocals and vocal samples-based album, Medúlla,andaperformanceofitsfirstsingle, 'Oceania', at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.The soundtrack to Drawing Restraint 9, a film by multimedia artist Matthew Barney, arrived in 2005andalsofeaturedcontributionsfromWillOldham. Bjork also starred in the film, which would never see a DVD release and is onlyviewable inselectartmuseums.Her next album, Volta, was released on 8 May 2007. Volta features collaborations with Timbaland,MarkBell,andAntonyHegartyofAntony and the Johnsons. The album’s first single, 'Earth Intruders', was released digitally on 9 April2007.Her most recent album, Biophilia, was released on the 5th of October, 2011, with Björk and 16bit producing.She also sang on the contemporary classical composer John Tavener’s piece Prayer Of The Heart. « hide |
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