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Björk

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Björk Guðmundsdóttir (pronounced “Byerk”), was born in Reykjavík, Iceland on November 21, 1965. - Mother: Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir - Father: Guðmundur Gunnarsson

The last name Guðmundsdóttir literally means “Gudmundsdaughter”; all in ancient Icelandic tradition of having dad's first name as your last name and adding whether you are the son or daughter.

Known relationships: - Exhusband: Þór Eldon Jónsson – Sugarcubes member - Óskar Jónasson – video director for the Sugarcubes - Dominic Thrupp (a.k.a. Dom T) – DJ - Stéphane Sednaoui – music video director - Adrian Thaws (a.k.a. Tricky) – DJ - Goldie - jungle musician - Howie Bernstein – DJ - Matthew Barney – video director

In 1970 Björk (pronounced “Byerk”) attends, at the age of five, to the local music school Barnamúsíkskóli Reykjavíkur did so for ten years and besides singing, she learned to play the piano and the flute.

In 1977 Björk appeared on national radio singing ‘I Love To Love’, which lead her to a record deal and Björk, with the help of stepfather Sævar, releases her very first solo album. Called Björk it depicts Björk sitting as an Arab princess cross-legged on an oriental carpet, surrounded by objects from far away and mystical countries.

The songs were a mixture of covers translated into Icelandic, like the Beatles hit ‘Fool On The Hill’ ('Alfur Út Úr Hól') and Stevie Wonder's song ‘Your Kiss Is Sweet’ ('Búkolla'), but it also contained some songs written specifically for the album, like the title song ‘Arabadrengurinn’ ('The Arab Boy') written by her step-father Sævar, and one instrumental flute-tribute to Icelandic painter Jóhannes Kjarval written by Björk herself who at that time was only 11 years old.

Selling about 5,000 copies the album went platinum and she was offered the chance to do a second album, but that sort of fame didn't bring her any joy, with her just being a child and having the other children either kissing up to her or teasing her, so she turned them down. With the money she earned she bought herself a piano and started composing new songs of her own.

By 1979 Björk was a girl who knew what she wanted and often went her own way, Björk thrived on the new trend from across the sea: punk Forming an all-girl band in the spirit of the Sex Pistols, under the title Spit and Snot; Björk - with orange hair and shaved-off eyebrows - took the position as drummer and rebelling against cute sissy feminist girls who don't dare to do things. After a while, the quite limited range punk offered bored her and she moved on to join the next band sensation to offer her the next thrill.

1980. EXODUS was the next step - a jazz fusion group Björk and her friends Ásgeir Sæmundsson and Þorvaldur Þorvalsson that lasted a garage-recorded cassette and a TV appearance.

Her next step, the collaboration JAM 80, lasted even shorter. One gig and nobody remembers what they sounded like. But Björk continued to experiment. Björk graduated from music school at the age of 15, being the only student to have followed through all the 10 years of education.

In 1982 Tappi Tíkarrass is formed. This was pure punk pop which, according to the bassist's dad "fit like a cork in a bitch's ass!" - and that's exactly what the name Tappi Tíkarrass means - or more precisely "Cork the bitch's ass".

Releasing 2 albums and appearing in a couple of films, most famous the Icelandic documentary ‘Rokk Í Reykjavík’ with 2 songs, Björk also became the cover girl of the video. Tappi later on played a lot alongside two other bands, Purrkurr Pillnikk and Þeyr. A noticeable member of Purrkurr Pillnikk was singer / trumpeter Einar Örn Benediktsson. By that time, Björk had met Þór Eldon and fallen in love for the very first time.

Also, when Björk was 17, she and her friend Didda, the poet, decided to get a matching pair of tattoo's on their left arms. They chose a 1000-year-old rune compass consisting of specific runes. They went to the only tattoo parlor in Iceland and had the same thing done. Later on she had another tattoo done; A spidery design behind the ear which is a symbol dhe made for KUKL.

Entering 1983 Tappi Tíkarrass has just about explored every possibility of the band and disbanded - with Björk already moving on by playing the keyboard and singing in bar room coverband Cactus for two summers, as well as being part of a world record attempt of longest live gig with Stigrim, and later on doing backing vocals and drumming for Rokka Rokka Drum.

Björk also discovers a very special book that she has said changed her life. It is, of course, Bataille’s ‘Story Of The Eye’, a book about teenagers on a mission, about sex, passions, perversions, murder, eyeballs, testicles and eggs It is a very intense story.

An Icelandic DJ was going to go off the air, and wanted to do so with a bang, so he gathered the cutting-edge Icelandic artists to play live on his very last show. They were Einar Örn and [[Einar Melax from Purrkurr Pillnikk, Gulli Óttarson, Siggi Baldursson and Birgir Morgensen from Þeyr and Björk. After writing songs andrehearsing for two weeks they performed under the name KUKL, which means 'sorcery' or 'witchcraft' in medieval Icelandic.

The band hit it off so good that they decided to stick to that group. They played some sort of dark Goth. In KUKL, Björk started to take the shape we see her in today, in her ways of expressing herself musically - her trademark way of singing, with all the howls and shrieks we know her by. After a while they got signed on the crass label under the management Derek Birkett, and started to go overseas, reaching a bigger crowd.

In 1984 KUKL releases two albums, first 'The Eye' - title referring to Björk's old favorite book 'Story Of The Eye', and later the same year they also recorded 'Holidays In Europe (The Naughty Nought)' although it wasn't released until the year after.

They were only released on vinyl records, but they were re-released in 1997 in CD format - to everyone's delight, since the original vinyl's have become a hard-to-find and expensive collectors items, like her first solo album (‘Björk’) which is now found by collectors at prices from US$ 100 to US$ 700.

Björk released a little book of poems to get some cash to pay the rent. It's called ‘Um Úrnat frá Björk’ and it was released in about 100 copies, all handcoloured by Björk herself. The title means ‘About Úrnat by Björk’, with Úrnat being a papu-ish word for holiday, or the likes of that. The book is now a rare collectors item.

In 1985 she discovered she was pregnant with Þór's child. That was no hinder for KUKL though. Björk carried on as usual, and being 7 months pregnant, playing live on the television.

In 1986 KUKL ultimately became very intense, so they decided to just break the band up. Björk carried on recording some music with Gulli though, under the name The Elgar Sisters, the name taken after a classical British composer. They recorded 11 songs for an album, but they were put on hold to await the next major development for Björk. A few of the songs were released under Björk's solo career; Glóra, Síðasta Ég and Stigðu Mig. At the age of 19, Björk gave birth to a wonderful child; a boy to be named Sindri, on June 8 of 1986.

The name is based on the Norse mythology blacksmith who made Thor's hammer, and it means "when two hot irons meet" and also "sparkle around the sun". They had bought a small apartment and even gotten married. Thor and Einar stood in the front of a new organization that was formed. The name Smekkleysa ('tasteless', or officially translated; Bad Taste) was given to it based on Picasso's aphorism "The worst enemy of creativity is good taste".

Bad Taste seemed to become ‘good taste’ when doing a prank painting of Ronald Reagan and Mijail Gorbachev over a map of Iceland. They did it just as they though everyone would hate it, but they seemed to love it, selling over 5,000 copies in a week.

Soon after Sindri was born, Björk got her first acting role in the Brothers Grim based movie ‘The Juniper Tree’, a black & white English-speaking movie about two sisters who possess witchcraft. Björk plays the younger sister Margit, who is the good witch. They have to flee because their mother has been burnt on the stake, and they suspect they can be next. Björk and Þór had now agreed to split up as a couple, but remain as friends and bandmates.

Björk started dating Óskar Jónasson and Þór got together with Margret Órnolfsdóttir, the keyboardist of the group Reptile and soon-to-be keybordist of Björk's next band, the Sugarcubes. A few later he had a baby with Magga as well. Later on, Bad Taste developed a pop group consisting of Björk, Siggi Baldursson, Einar Örn and Einar Melax from KUKL, with Þór Eldon, Bragi Ólafsson and Purrkurr Pillnikk's old guitarist Fridrik Erlingson. They had to have a name of course, but after idea after idea had been tossed aside, Einar exclaimed that they should call themselves the silliest thing they could think of.

The Sugarcubes or 'Sykurmolarnir', in their native tongue. Although their first unofficial gig was performed under the name Þukl. They are said to have dated the birth of the band at the same time as Sindri's birth, at 2.50 p.m on June 8th of 1986. Their official gig was rewarded with some studio time, and so they recorded their first hit, 'Ammæli' (Birthday). They released an English version on the British new label One Little Indian in 1987.

Björk took, on the side of singing, up her acting career again - this time in an Icelandic TV play by Matthias Johannesen called Glerbrot ('Broken glass'), playing a troubled teenager fighting for freedom from a couple of perverted nuns.

After a few shows, Fridrik dropped out of the Sugarcubes, and Einar Melax took the place of keyboardist leaving Þór as the sole guitarist.

‘Einn moll'á mann’ contained the song ‘Ammæli’, later re-realesed with English lyrics, as ‘Birthday’. The single became a big hit in England and it was the first Icelandic song to enter the charts outside the native country. Sykurmolarnir changed their name to The Sugarcubes. Suddenly representants from diverse multi-national record-companies, who were attracted by the atmospherical beauty of ‘Birthday’, were offering the band millions of dollars for a record-deal. Sugarcubes signed with One Little Indian and became the first Icelandic rock-band to face international stardom. In 1988 they released their million-selling debut-album ‘Life's too good’.

In 1988 The Sugarcubes got popular soon and signed onto the American scene via the Warner imprint Elektra and after a few singles they released their debut album. The title was conceived when a broke poet friend in Iceland exclaimed, when given a cup of coffee and a cigarette; “Life's Too Good!" Titles like 'Fucking In Rhythm And Sorrow', 'Blue Eyed Pop', 'Motorcrash' and 'Mama' adorned the cover art (released in 6 different neon colours) designed by Me Company. The Sugarcubes - silly and playful, now did what KUKL, who were really making a stand, tried to do - it put Icelandic on the musical map.

After a while the Sugarcubes once again switched keyboardist, this time to Þór's girlfriend Magga Örnolfsdóttir - "stolen" from the band Reptile. By 1989 The Sugarcubes had now become really famous, and when entering the studio once again they felt like they had made a real sell out, and decided to make the next album as unpredictable as possible. They wanted to replicate the 'live' feeling of their songs, which became difficult in a studio with such talents. And on top of that, not being able to agree on which songs to include or even which final mixes to use - they quickly exceeded their budget and ran overdue.

Finally, the first single 'Regina' was presented to the world, and now Björk was as brand new as the sound. Short, short hair and stream- lined space-age tights and dresses, with plastic and silver and glitter being the favorites. After a Monster tour, they released their second album with the title ‘Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!’ - a quote inspired of Mr. Toad of Kenneth Grahame's famous children's book 'The Wind In The Willows' 'The poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here today - in next week tomorrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped - always somebody else's horizon!' (The Wind In The Willows)

The album was consisted of 13 songs, some sweet, some bitter. This was not like 'Life's Too Good' at all, which was what they aimed at - but the critics weren't as convinced of the glory of this album, so they came down pretty hard on it - putting most of the blame on Einar's noising about! The album sold poorly, but the live shows were always fully seated.

The years passed by and Bad Taste was running a bit slow, but when Björk got the question from a couple of old friends and jazz musicians to sing for them live when they were gonna be on the radio. Björk had been itching to do this since 1987, when she had sung some jazzy gibberish with the trio on one occasion, so she leaped on it and Bad Taste was keen on releasing it on an album as well.

The old friends were Guðmundur Steingrimsson (aka 'Papa Jazz') and his Tríó Guðmundur Ingólfssonar, and together with Björk they did a totally spontaneous album; 2 days, all live - no double takes. The songs were old Icelandic tunes made famous by old Icelandic singers and a couple of standards such as 'Oh Mein Papa' (in Icelandic), 'Ruby Baby' and 'Can't Help Loving That Man Of Mine'.

Gling-Gló instantly sold platinum, just like her old 1977 album had done. There were a few live tapes, since they played some gigs in Iceland, but after Guðmundur died of cancer in 1992. Back home in Iceland again, life went on. Björk planned to form a speed metal band called Scud and a duet with Sinead O´Connor but wound up singing for Current 93, Bless and two tracks for Sódóma Reykjavík, Óskar Jónassons first movie. The songs were the local fifties standard 'O Borg Min Borg' with the KK Band and a techno track called 'Takk' with DJ Þórhallur.

Later on she met a British fella who was the first musician she knew who liked to improvise music on computers - something that thrilled Björk, who now was a bit bored with the drum-bass-guitars setup of the Sugarcubes. The band the British guy was in was of course 808 State.

In 1991 she also demoed two of her own songs for 808 State member Graham Massey in 1990 - Aeroplane and the Anchor Song, and she met up with them in the studio in Manchester. After taking a walkabout with her headphones full of 808 State she returned with two new tracks; 'Ooops' and 'Qmart' - both of them ended up on the 808 State 1991 album EX:EL. She also admitted that she had some new music of her own, but that would have to be put on hold for the new album the Sugarcubes were planning.

She had offered the Sugarcubes one of her songs named 'Murder for two', but they rejected it because they couldn't fit music to the lyrics. Björk later on released it as her first solo single under the name 'Human Behaviour' After a while she also met jazz harpist Corky Hale, a tough old lady who could stroke the harp moving Björk to tears. They wanted to do something together, but Björks own music didn't quite bridge the generation-gap between them so they settled on Björk's favourite, Chet Baker's old songs, like 'Like Someone In Love', 'My Funny Valentine' and 'I Fall In Love Too Easily' and such - with only the songs 'Like Someone In Love' and 'I Remember You' being properly released by Björk later on.

1992. Björk met DJ Dom Thrupp on a trip to Disneyland, and as her relationship with Óskar was sort of drifting away, with them both being busy on their own in separate parts of the world, Björk sort of drifted slowly into love with him after a while.

After two singles released in 1990 and 1991, the third Sugarcubes album was also released. The title of this album was sort of a sarcastic tribute to the way some Japanese people think American is pretty posh and therefor make up phrases they think sound very American, like "Enjoy A Refreshing Time", "Can't Beat The Feeling" or "Stick Around For Joy!” So they gave all the album songs such names, and called the album 'Stick Around For Joy'. This album drew attention from the critics and made The Sugarcubes even more popular.

Later the same year they also put out a cd called 'It's-It' with remixes of some songs from their previous albums, with mixes by the likes of Justin Robertson, Tony Humphries and Graham Massey, but someone said that that was probably more of a marketing plot than a Sugarcubes thing. The Sugarcubes once again started touring, but this was to be their very last tour together, now supporting U2. Their very final gig was to take place November 17 in New York at the Limelight club.

In 1993 Björk went to London with Sindri. After all, Dom was British, so things would probably work out best there. First settling in Belzie Park to be near green areas, then later on in Little Venice.

Björk had some demo tapes ready for Derek Birkett, and made it clear from the start that she only did this to please herself, so she wouldn't commercialize it - which he, to her surprise, accepted. Although when she played him a demo of ‘Violently Happy’, he had admitted to hate it, and still does. But it was Björk's call to keep it if she wanted to.

Dom introduced Björk to Nellee Hooper, who would turn out to help Björk produce her album. Original intent was that each track would have a different producer, though, but they hit it off real good.

Björk was sick of bands, sick of the marriage between bass, drums (and especially) guitars, she wanted hardcore techno, while Nellee wanted a softer and more sophisticated approach. From their work Björk came up with 'Big Time Sensuality', but the first single to hit success was 'Human Behaviour' - a meditation on humanity's oddness, portrayed on the big screen by French animator Michel Gondry - having a giant teddybear avenge on the human race and deliciously chomping up Björk in the end.

She named the album 'Debut' - to celebrate that it was her first self-made album with her own songs and without any compromises. She adorned the cover in monochrome colours, just-got-out-of-bed hair and an equally fuzzy sweater in a prayer-like pose, two glistening jeweled tears beneath her eyes and fingertips dipped in gold. The picture was captured by photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

Björk released 5 singles off Debut:

  • Human Behaviour (June 1993)
  • Venus As A Boy (July 1993)
  • Play Dead (October 1993)
  • Big Time Sensuality (November 1993)
  • Violently Happy (March 1994)

Then it came to performing Debut live - her first solo gig was at the show 'Later with Jools Holland'. After a while she settled on a group of six, mostly immigrant, musicians to be her supporting band:

Ke Leo from St. Kitts Island in the Caribbean (bass) Leila Arab from Iran (keyboards) Guy Sigsworth from Britain (keyboards and programming) Dan Lipman from Britain (sax, flute and tambourine) Tansay Omar from Turkey (drums) Talvin Singh from India (tablas and percussion)

At this time Björk became very popular in the press. In 1994 as she was working more with Sednaoui, they came closer to eachother and finally they took their working relationship one step further. Doing a live video, loads of live gigs (one in Iceland being entered by a parachuting Björk) and interviews, an Unplugged session for MTV (with the cut-out track of Björk and Corky Hale performing 'My Funny Valentine' missing from the final video) and even modeling clothes for Gaultier (as later also seen in the movie 'Pret-A-Porter') - Debut was a major hit.

Having split with Sednaoui, Björk wrote a song about it, called 'Possibly Maybe', a journey through the seven stages of a relationship, from the first crush to the crushing break-up.Björk soon got into another working relationship gone intimate as she met Adrian Thaws, also known as 'Tricky'. The working relationship produced, after an escapade to Icelands nature an hot springs, two songs - 'Enjoy' and 'Headphones'.

Her next album was made with the help of with Nellee, Marius de Vries and Howie B. She headed for Bahamas because half the record had to be recorded outside the UK, in order to register her newly formed company Björk Overseas Ltd., having changed the name from "Bapsi" Ltd (which was said to have been Björk's childhood nickname) - but Björk didn't mind at all - she took the chance to record it outdoors, on the beach at midnight and in bat-filled caves.

Björk felt free to record however she wanted, and felt that she needed to be more direct about the music, with no complications - and thus she recorded 'Possibly Maybe' in the nude.

The new album was supposed to be released when they got home from their exotic journey, but in the last minute Björk panicked about the album being too soft and electronic so she re-recorded it, adding trumpets, saxophones, harpsichords, a symphony orchestra and a brass band - changing the form of 'Cover Me' and 'I Miss You' (which had existed for many years with other lyrics and the gibberish title 'Gail Biffen') and got in touch with Eumir Deodato (who had worked for Milton Nascimento in his album ‘Travesía’ in 1967, an album that Björk loves because of its string arrrangements) to score the strings for the tracks 'Isobel', 'Hyper-Ballad' and 'You've Been Flirting Again'. The album was released in 1995. Björk called her new album 'Post' because the songs were like letters from London home to Iceland.

The cover picture was supposed to be from a photo shoot where Björk was surrounded by silver balls, but Björk scrapped that and went for something more pink and poppy.

This time around Björk released 7 singles:

  • Army Of Me (April 1995)
  • Isobel (August 1995)
  • It’s Oh So Quiet (November 1995)
  • Hyper-Ballad (February 1996)
  • Possibly Maybe (November 1996)
  • I Miss You (February 1997)

This album brought success with another set of touring, live acts with both Skunk Anansie and PJ Harvey, collaborations, a whole bunch of music videos - moths, polarbears and cartoon Björks going berserk since the video of ‘I Miss You’ was directed by Spümco an animation company created by John Kricfalusi the one who created Ren & Stimpy.

It even brought a lawsuit - the few seconds of ambient noise in the beginning of Possibly Maybe was a sample by Scanner (A.k.a. Robin Rimbaud) and even though he thought that all noises were free to humans, his publishing company begged to differ and made claims for a royalty fee. They later dropped their charges, feeling that they weren't supported in the matter by their own artist. Touring on, Björk once got a nasty flu and lost her voice, but regained it only to discover she had lost 3 octaves of her singing range and she was diagnosed with throat nodules. Having finished a fleeting romance with Tricky, Björk was now seen with Jungle DJ Goldie and later shyly revealed a relationship that, according to Björk, was 'the best thing yet'.

By 1996 Björk was rumored to a lot of things, but a couple of things that really did happen was the recording of Björk's cover of 'You Only Live Twice' for a compilation of Bond covers David Arnold (who did Play Dead with Björk) was composing. Apparently she wasn't satisfied with it, and had phoned the studio the day after the recording, asking them to throw it away, but someone must have saved a copy, because it's now available on the Internet.

Björk, being fond of extremes, also took part of the forty minute piece 'Pierrot Lunaire' by Shönberg with conductor Kent Negano and the Opera orchestra of Lyon. It's a talking-singing performance which required three months of rehearsals. This appearance was never officially released and all recording devices were strictly banned from the building. Later on, Björk finally got to tour Asia - and she brought Sindri along. On the stage in Hong Kong, she was surprised on stage (to the extent of dropping her microphone) by Goldie, presenting her with the 1996 Brit Award for 'best international female artist'.

Later on that tour she got another, not so pleasant surprise. Björk headed from Hong Kong to Thailand, making it clear to the reporters that she wanted to be left alone until she could hold a proper press conference and photoshoot a little later. Having denied all offers of interviews, Björk also worried about Sindri, since he was old enough to be approached by the press now, and she was very protective of his privacy.

Arriving on the airport, all her requests of being left alone were completely ignored and she was drowned in a flood of reporters and camera crews, including one of cable station IBC's show 'Fast Forward' - who claimed they had been promised an interview.

Trying to get away, Björk grimaced and turned her head down while pushing Sindri on a luggage trolley, all while 'Fast Forward's reporter Julie Kaufman beamed "Welcome to Bangkok!" towards Sindri when Björk, without warning, jumped her, dragged her to the floor and thumped her head against the concrete floor about 5 times - the security guards seemed helpless but managed to drag off Björk who entered the bus where Sindri was waiting.

Later on, she apologized, and Julie decided not to sue her but reported to feeling sorry for her for having so much anger inside. Björk released an album of remixes from Post, called 'Telegram', an adventurous mixture of different sounds - from vocoded rage in Possibly Maybe to a fluttering and beautiful string Hyper-Ballad by the Brodsky Quartet and a minimalist thundery techno mix of Headphones by Finnish DJ Mika Vainio.

In one opportunity while Björk was in Miami, a 24-year old crazed Björk fanatic was so upset about her relationship with a black man (Tricky) that he manically filmed himself while creating an acid mailbomb in a hollowed-out book and mailing it to Björk's home in London, then shaving his head, painting his body and to the sound of 'I Remember You' playing in the background, blowing his head off with a pistol.

The fan, named Ricardo López, lived mere blocks away from where Björk was in Miami during that time. The police found his body in his apartment which was a shrine to Björk, plastered with pictures of her on the walls - and they managed to get ahold of the package before it had reached Björk to "send her to hell" like Ricardo intended, as he said on the.

Of course Björk was horribly upset by this whole incident, feeling both threatened and guilty, and she even sent Ricardo’s parents flowers as a condolence for the loss of their son. She now didn't feel comfortable in London. Having split up with Goldie as well, this time was too chaotic - she had to leave, so she went with her son and workmates to Spain to record her next album.

By 1997 Björk had settled in Spain and her studio (El Cortijo) in El Madroñal, where she could see Africa. The process of recording the songs was filmed and first shown in 1998 on BBC under the name 'The Southbank Show : Björk Special', and also later on Bravo channel as 'Bravo : Björk Special'; a huge hit amongst Björk fans; an unique peek into Björk's studio and history as told by herself.

During Björk's second year of performing at the Tibetan freedom festival arranged by the Beastie Boys, Björk took the chance to premiere a bunch of songs that were to be on the album to come. In September 1997 Björk released her third album, entitled by the style of the songs with a word she didn't even knew existed for real: Homogenic.

The word chosen to symbolize the unity and thread of minimalism in the songs, actually does mean exactly that; songs so similar they could be one. Beats, strings and Björk's voice. The songs were more vulnerable and darker than before.

The cover photo, shot by Alexander McQueen and manipulated in the computer, depicts Björk as a icy-cold futuristic multinational being; clothes and lips of a geisha, hair like a sombrero and golden rings that stretches her neck to inhuman length like of some African tribe; all with an element of a supernatural being.

This time around, 5 singles are released:

  • Jóga (September 1997)
  • Bachelorette (December 1997)
  • Hunter (October 1998)
  • Alarm Call (November 1998)
  • All Is Full Of Love (June 1999)

The ‘Alarm Call’ (Bjeck mix) was made by Beck Hansen. So lots of singles and music videos were released, now two video tapes were also released; one compilation of all Björk's music videos up until Hunter, called Volume, and one concert video recorded at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London in February 1997 in front of an all-fanclub members audience - a Post tour video like 'Vessel' was a Debut tour video. After a year of promoting the album on television in various shows and touring the world with the intimate crew of an Icelandic string-octet and engineer Mark Bell of LFO.

In 1999 Björk offered her musical skills to Danish director Lars von Trier - the Dogme 95 stalwart noted for movies such as ‘Breaking The Waves’ and ‘The Idiots’.The next masterpiece was to be a musical, and Björk agreed to write all the songs for it. Lars wouldn't settle for that though, and performed the miracle of talking Björk into playing the star role in the movie as well, with the argument that anyone else would do her songs injustice.

The movie is a musical, a comedy and a tragedy all in one - a Czech halfblind woman moves to America - the promised land - and works overtime in a factory to earn enough money to save her son from going blind as well. A sad fate, but her spirits are always up high because she has an amazing ability to transform every situation to a musical scene.

Of course, things can't go very well, and true enough, one day she gets robbed on all that she has earned, and in the process of trying to get it back she winds up in prison and the movie ends very tragically. Starring together with Björk are world-renoun actors and actresses such as Swedish Peter Stormare and French Catherine Deneuve. ‘Dancer In The Dark’ was shot in 2000.

The movie is set to be in the scenery of Washington, America in the 40's, but due to the fact that the director, Lars von Trier, has a terrible fear of flying, they had to relocate closer to Denmark. And so, the major part of the movie was shot in the Swedish town Trollhättan (also known as "Trollywood") close to Gothenburg. Additional scenes were filmed in [[Copenhagen, Denmark and the final scenes were shot in the town of Walla Walla in Seattle, USA.

For the movie, Björk had to take extra dancing and tapdancing-lessons by world-renoun choreographer Vincent Patterson. Due to the long time it took to film the movie, she lived in the countries the set was located at the time. In december of 1999, Björk held two concerts in the Islington Chapel of London, UK. Together with her trusty Brodsky Quartet, whom she has worked alot with before, she sang completely without a microphone.

One surprise release is of the song Amphibian, released first on the internet and then on the soundtrack of the movie ‘Being John Malkovitch’ which premiered in october 1999.

Björk's optimism was actually awarded in Iceland on october 30th 1999. She was awarded Bröstes optimistic award of this year. It is the last time this award is handed out, and Björk is the 19th person to receive it. In May 2000 Björk's first big movie ‘Dancer in the Dark’ premiered at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival. The movie received the award for best movie and Björk was awarded as best actress.

Björk released ‘Selmasongs’, the soundtrack of ‘Dancer In The Dark’. It was an album wtih 7 songs which the first of them was ‘Overture’ (instrumental), in some of the track she was accompannied: Catherine Deneuve (in ‘Cvalda’) Thom York, leader of Radiohead (in ‘I’ve Seen It All’) –whose music video was made with nearly 100 fixed cameras– and Siobhan Fallon (in ‘107 Steps’).

In 2001 on the 73rd Oscars Academy Awards the song ‘I’ve Seen It All’ had a nomination for best song thanks to this opportunity Björk performed on stage before millions of people. The Oscar went to Bob Dylan. In the same year the music channel VH1 organized a contest of the best 100 music videos of all times and Björk got the sixth position with ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’, video directed by Spike Jonze. The election was made by the music industry.

In August 2001 Björk released ‘Vespertine’ an album in which she made use of chorus and mild sounds. From this album three music videos were made: ‘Hidden Place’ directed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin + M/M Paris. ‘Pagan Poetry’, directed by Nick Night (on this video she appears with her brests in the nude), and ‘Coccon’ which appeared in 2002 and was directed by Eiko Ishioka.

Three singles were released from this album:

  • Hidden Place (August 2001)
  • Pagan Poetry (November 2001)
  • Cocoon (March 2002)

The cover of the album depicts Björk lying on the floor wearing a swan-shaped dress which was designed by Marjan Pejoski, and it’s the symbol of ‘Vespertine’. By the way, Björk had already worn it during the Academy Awards. The picture of the cover was taken by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

In August the same year she published a book titled only ‘Björk’ and it’s about different essays with some pictures of the singer.

In 2002 Björk released ‘Greatest Hits’ a compilation of her big hits throughout her 10-year solo career (1993-2003). This album also has the song ‘It’s In Our Hands’ and its music video was shot in a jungle-like environment where animals and insects seems to be larger than she. In October 2002 Björk gave to birth a girl whose name is Isidora, her father is Matthew Barney, a video director.

After ‘Greatest Hits’ she released ‘Family Tree’, a group of songs from different times of her singing trajectory. From this album comes the song ‘Nature Is Ancient’ whose music video shows microorganisms moving all around the camera to finally create a creature whose appeareace bears a resemblance to a human foetus. She is currently prepearing her next album.

Complete discography, including her former bands and all her singles:

Tappi Tíkarrass (1982 – 1983):

KUKL (1983 – 1986):

The Sugarcubes (1986 – 1992):

Solo (1976-present):

Videos and movies:

Books:

External links:

  • www.bjork.com/unity - Official homepage
  • www.bjorkletras.hpg.ig.com.br/index.htm - Site with all her lyrics and traslations from Icelandic to English and Portuguese.
  • www.ebweb.at/ortner/audio/bjorkstuff - It is the Unofficial Björk Video Archive, a site with video and audio archives to download.

NOTE: in this biography it is used characters that come from the Icelandic language. Following there is an explanation about the way they should be pronounced with examples of known words:

Þ / þ: it is pronounced as the th in English, examples: “the”, “therefore”, etc.

Ö / ö: it is a combination between e and o, it is pronounced as the German words that use it or like the French word “pleure”.

Đ / ð: it has a soft pronuntiation like d, example: “with”.

Æ / æ: it is a combination between a and e, and it sounds like ei, example: “mail”

The use of accents: it is common in Icelandic that more than an accent is used in a single word, even with y (ý), the other letters are pronounced like in Spanish.

This biography was written by Lmb Luis María Benítez.

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