Björk
By: Olivia Freiberg
I am a huge fan of Scandinavian artists and the particular spin they put on pop music and the way they infuse sounds from their indigenous ways of singing into really amazing beats and background vocals. So when I heard a song by Björk for the first time, I was completely blown away. While a lot of her songs tend to be extremely “out there” for many American listeners, I really like the way Björk does not allow her creativity to be constricted to what popular media views to be “normal”. The first song I ever heard from Björk was, “Army of Me”, which I found drew me in because the way it did not reflect any song I had ever heard before and was done in such a way that only Björk could have executed.
It was in Iceland in 1993 that Björk released her album Debut, a house-oriented album that yielded four hit singles. The songs on the album got huge play at dance clubs; remixes by some popular DJs also helped propel it to the top of the charts. By the time her second solo effort, Post, was released, she had co-written the title track for Madonna’s Bedtime Stories. Björk seemed to not shy away from fame during this and sparked a media frenzy for attacking a reporter, who was trying to take pictures of her son, and hooking up with jungle artist Goldie
After releasing her third album Homogenic, Björk made the move into acting and landed a role in Dancer in the Dark , a movie by Lars von Trier, and played the role of Selma and contributed the soundtrack Selmasongs. More recently, Björk starred in the movie “The Northman”, where she represented ancient Icelandic culture as a seeress that instructed the male lead on his destiny.
She still is making music and even collaborated with famous Spanish artist Rosalia on an amazing song titled, “Oral”.
In terms of Björk’s creative process, she views the music and the creative works she does as primal and focuses her skills on the emotions that she feels in that moment and forms songs around charged experiences in her life. In an interview she did with The Creative Independent, she is quoted as saying, “My musical DNA’s kind of my core, you know, and my person. Whomever is up for merging with that musical DNA, it’s going to be something that takes more and lasts longer, usually”. She never plans what she is going to do and does not work with the expectations that her popularity is going to last. Björk, instead, works on each individual project and tries to make decisions simply from what she feels will be best and not from what society or people might like. Each piece is meant to be taken as a sort of as is and an extension of Björk.
In connection to my focus book, “The Creative Spark” by Augustin Fuentes, I feel that Björk reinforces the point that Fuentes wishes to make in his book that creativity is an innate skill within the human psyche, which was an evolutionary benefit for the longest time, and certain individuals have the ability to steer this skill away from simply survival tactics and move it into areas of self-expression. I believe Björk is in touch with this innate and primal creativity and is able to access and execute its will to the benefit of her song mixing and lyrical skills.
In terms of class material, I would view Björk as a medium C creative, because her music was not without influence but she did not create any insane paradigm shifts within the music community. I think her music greatly impacted the “house” scene of the 90s as well as the alternative pop scene and for that it grants her a step above the little C demarcation.
It is incredibly interesting how Bjork includes influences from all over the world in her music. Sometimes, art can seem stifling, especially when looking at more traditional mediums with "rules" from previous artists. However, as you mention, art is something that can connect people. I am also interested in what you think about Fuentes and the connection you make. I am also reading The Creative Spark and I have been struggling with some of the connections he makes because he focuses so much on the science perspective. However, it is interesting to think of creativity and art as something innate and also unique to humanity. The process of creating new music that has influences from around the world and creating something unique seems to me like an incredibly human experience. Bjork's process also reminds me of the collecting creativity style we discussed in class. I am incredibly impressed by people who can hear existing music and create something new inspired by it.
ReplyDeleteI love Bjork and I like your connection to the Creative Spark. I'm not reading that focus book, but I totally recognize Bjork's innate ability to create. It almost seems like a defense mechanism. Even if she tried, her music could not be normal or mainstream. Her personality is so entwined in her music it's hard to separate the two. It helps that her music is so futuristic and earthy.
ReplyDeleteMy group's creative project was on Iris van Herpen, who designed dresses for Bjork's Cornucopia tour. Having learned a lot about van Herpen's side of their collaboration already, it was interesting to hear about Bjork's creative mind. It's clear why they decided to work together; they both have this innate creativity and calling to push fashion and musical norms. The part about Bjork making music that she likes and not aiming to please the masses reminded me of the creative presentation on Mitski. Both artists seem a lot more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated.
ReplyDeleteI really think that one of the things that makes her music so good is that she doesn't expect to be popular forever. Doing this allows her to expirement and make music that may be completely different from what others expect and I think this fact is what makes her music so unique. A lot of artists seem to fall into the trap of catering their music to what they think their fans will want in an effort to stay relevant which ultimately leads to them becoming generic and boring, this is certainly not the case with Bjork.
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