CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of Bjork: Medulla

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

this entry brought to you by eagles of death metal, "stuck in the metal"





Without ever really going out of my way to do so, it turns out I'm actually quite a big Bjork fan. Upon buying Medulla the week it came out, I noticed that I actually have all of her CDs, including the short, sweet Selma Songs EP, which was the soundtrack to the movie Dancer in the Dark, which Bjork starred in. I think Bjork's a genius; one of the world's most popular musicians, and yet, perhaps paradoxically, one who makes some of the world's most eccentric music. Bjork is that odd weirdo that somehow manages consistently to appeal to people despite making music that only she truly understands. I don't mean only she understands it just because she sometimes, seemingly at random, begins singing in a foreign language; not just because she makes English sound as if it's a foreign language to you even though it's the other way around; but because she presents her music as if it's a puzzle that can either be unravelled or not-- she simply presents it and lets you take from it what you want.

To sum up, I'm a big Bjork fan, and I consider her third LP, Homogenic to be an essential album for any true music connoisseur's collection. I understand Bjork. I feel like we're, in an abstract way, kindred spirits.

...And yet, I don't really like her latest LP, Medulla. I did not like it on the first listen, but even after five or six listens alone with just me and the CD, the way it really, really needs to be listened to, I still don't like it. I appreciate it a little more, but to be completely honest, it's just not good.

The concept behind it is that it's an a capella album-- Bjork wails and croons as always, and even the multi channel voices backing each other up with "ooohs" and "aaahs" doesn't seem that big of a deal after the enigmatic Vespertine. But the beats are all by human beat boxes, the Icelandic choir replaces synthesized landscapes (except on a couple tracks, most notably "Oceania", one of the album's best tracks, which she performed at the Olympics), and there are other very eccentric additions here and there, such as a "throat singer". Even legendary metal-prankster Mike Patton performs on a good chunk of the album, although in what capacity I'm not sure.

It's kind of obvious what the appeal of creating an album entirely out of human voices is-- the album has an entirely unique, extremely organic feel. The whole album gives you the feeling of walking through a forest set in a fairy tale. The problem is, as Yoko Ono could tell you, the idea doesn't exactly work, even in the more-than-capable hands of Bjork.

Example: "Where is the Line", which could've been the album's best song, is ruined by a rubbery human beat that sounds like mercury bouncing on a pan like popcorn. "Submarine" would've been a delicate, fragile flower of a song, were it not ruined by humans that desperately hum and "ooh" as if they're trying to be fragile and delicate. There are a couple songs that feature just Bjork without any back up harmonizers ("Show Me Forgiveness", "Oll Birtan"), but these, with Bjork's voice floating around, desperately seeking a direction, fail because Bjork works best with a beat. Then there's "Ancestors", which is an absolutely unlistenable jumble of cooing, breathing, barks, and snorts. And god, I only wish I was joking about the "snort" part.

The album does offer three winners despite all this: the first track, "Pleasure Is All Mine", is a mysterious, heavenly song, that gives us a horny, loving Bjork at her best; the aforementioned "Oceania", the delicate, fragile flower of a song that works, and "Who Is It (Carry My Joy to the Left, Carry My Joy to the Right)", which feels as if you're swimming on a sea of fairies.

Some fans of Bjork are going to defend this album saying that it's an accomplishment for artistry, that someone could have the idea and the balls to create such an eccentric album and make it the way she wants to make it, but really, that argument is irrelevent since that's true of all her albums, and all of them, other than Medulla, don't suck. This particular album, however, seems limited to being a curiousity; for collectors of novelty albums and Bjork fetishists only.
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with love from CRS @ 3:06 PM 

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