Internationally acclaimed Iceland singer, songwriter, DJ, actress and activist Björk, has restlessly written music since her childhood by pushing the boundaries of sound and classical composition. She has been referred to as the ‘Queen of Pop’ (Damaschke, 2015) through her forever expanding experimentation and collaborations, bringing about a uniqueness and beauty in her musical style. Björk’s innate passion for nature and technology has brought on four decades worth of intellectually expansive music. Each album (or experimental project) extends from the previous, telling an ever extensive story through sound and visual interests, film clips typically by well renowned Directors such as Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze (Cinquemani, 2013). Björk has told the story of human behaviour and the wonder of existence with the help of melodic notation and modern technology. Not only has nature and technology been a vital influence in igniting her artistic concepts, but these concepts have transcended onto stage performances, such as visual and sensory clips and interactive devices (Stonemilker, 2015).
This essay will discuss Björk’s personal and musical history as well as Icalands historical influences, which have helped create the individualistic and eclectic style Björk is known for. This essay will also discuss major transitional movements through her albums in the sonic and notational changes and the subjective progressions in lyric and technology.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, on November 21st 1965 (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018) to Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, a social activist, and Guðmundur Gunnarsson, an electrician and Union leader (Rafanelli, 2016). At the age of 5, she started showing signs of musical talent and was enrolled and accepted to the children’s recital school of Barnamúsíkskóli in her hometown Reykjavík (BBC, 2002). She studied there for ten years majoring in classical piano and flute. The school taught music from classical German composers like Johann Christian Bach and Ludwig Van Beethoven, and although education was thorough and ‘great for her earlier years’, she grew dissociated with the teachings stating ‘I felt the school was too controlling, and I didn’t understand what a ten-year-old Icelandic girl had to do with all these three-hundred-year-old German guys?’. (Björk, 2018). There was a separation in Iceland between the youth and the traditional education as they (youth) ‘couldn’t relate to the strict teachings of classical music’ (Björk, 2002). The reason was that Iceland had had its own history, its own landscape and its own voice and classical teaching and the restrictiveness in school ‘stifled new creative endeavours’ (Björk, 2002). The Youths in the 1980’s and 90’s were craving ‘Icelandic music’ the ‘Icelandic sound’ and someone that could express the ‘Icelandic reality’ and although young people had something to say, it was being repressed (Björk, 2002).
Prior to 1918, where Iceland became its own Sovereign State, Iceland was under the rule of the Danish from as far back as the Middle Ages, 1800-1900 (Fontaine, 2018). During this ruling, all music and dance was removed as it was seen as an act from the Devil. In turn the Icelandic people had to re-create music and became engulfed with the art of storytelling, combining spoken word with a chant like melody. Literature was used as a main driver to these melodic structures, using vocal inflections in wording to instigate sonic flow (Sigursón, 2013). This completely re-shaped musical expression in Iceland and the need for music forced the Icelandic people to creatively represent their emotional sound (Þórhallsson, Kristinsson, 2013). Björks vocal style is said to have stemmed from this history. ‘Björk uses her voice in specific ways addings textural elements to her music. It isn’t necessarily a singing voice, and nor is it a speaking voice but rather somewhere in between … This is quite similar to that of traditional choir men reciting old Icelandic poetry and scriptures’ (Sigursón, 2013). Although Bjork has and continues to be innovative in her musical progressions, she naturally uses these stylistic imbedded techniques in her music. Iceland had virtually no musical history other than literature based vocal choirs, which was quite convenient for Björk as she could invent music for herself through her main instrument of voice (Björk, 1995).
Freestyling through vocal play became her prominent method, a development since childhood in which she continues to use to date. When the UK punk scene came to Iceland in 1979 Björk, at 14 was already in a band. It was an explosion of new age music and the D.I.Y. punk spirit was what the Icelandic youth needed to help expand creativity (Björk, 2012) Björk joined the surrealist group Medúsa, which was formed in the early 1980’s where members ‘wrote poetry, did scandalous food performances around the city, ran a gallery (which was actually kind of a shed), had exhibitions of paintings, drawings, and sculpture, and played music’. Power chords and loud poetry brought out the ‘Impulse, emotion and instinct’ (Björk, 2013). From Medúsa Björk formed many Post-Punk/ New Age experimental music where she was able to further develop her vocalisation with howls, shrieks and overall tonality until, in 1986, The Sugarcubes emerged bringing the band international fame with the song ‘Birthday’. Elements of ‘aggressive bass, angular guitar and hard tribal rhythms into bright, hypnotic melodies’ was the band’s main style (Fricke, 1988). Once the group disassembled in 1988, Björk came to a realisation that she was ‘hiding’ her music and that it was time to show what truly resonated inside (Bjork, 2013).
Debut was released in 1993 as Björk’s first solo project. It was a unique album, under the classification of Pop music, as it contained influences of ‘techno, trip-hop, jazz and pop, and influenced by Bollywood soundtracks’ (Cragg, 2013). Unlike anything that she had released before, Björk had put together an album with lavish strings and deep turbulent brass interludes. In 1995, Björk’s second album Post was released. Hums and gurgles of ‘ambient techno motives’ and industrial sounds are heard alongside ethereal bells and swift string arrangements. Together they challenge yet compliment Björk’s vocals as she moves to extreme melodic highs and lows, to grunts and whispers (Ali, 1998). It wasn’t until Björk’s third album Homogenic (1997) that she admitted the need to facing the classical education she had received in her youth. Through the many years in writing the soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark (released in the year 2000), issues in the ‘orchestra stuff’ came up that she had to confront. This helped Björk write Homogenic and create beautiful string and harp arrangements (Bjork, 2018). The use of the spacial stereo field is greatly utilised in Homogenic.
Björk preferred music that was modal and more chromatic (Fricke, 2018). Fascinated by the complexity in sound and repetitive rhythmic patterns, Björk had the vocal capability and personal freedom to express sonic tonality through a variation of bodily techniques. Movements in the mouth and throat would bring out a series of different tones for additional emphasise to sections in her music. The biggest influence over Björk has been the ‘Organic’ in Iceland. Iceland affected the way Björk sings because she had spent so much time in nature as a child. Shown in her 2004 album Medulla, the album is almost entirely vocal based with the use of vocal samples, beatboxers, Choirs from both Britain and Iceland and traditional vocalists (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). All natural sounds with minimal amounts of electronic synthesizers to carry the weight of the compositions and push the songs forward. The stereo field is further explored by hard panning the most intricate sounds made through the mouth adding much detail to Björk’s vocals in the forefront.
In 2011 Björk released Biophilia, which was yet again pushing the boundaries of the musical realm. In her stage performances, Sir. David Attenborough would introduce the Biophilia project letting people know of the interactive iPod application and as the concert continued, a giant pendulum would rock plucking strings as it swung alongside unamplified melodies emitted through a Tesla coil (Nicholson, 2012). Upon opening the iPod application, Attenborough’s voice is heard introducing the program and explaining its parameters. The user can sweep through planets named after 10 tracks from the album (Kiss, Needham 2011). The user can move around the app listening to and affecting the track ‘Cosmogony’, which is automatically installed in the app. Through the zooming tool, the volume becomes louder and clearer. If the user chooses to, they can zoom out and move into other sections of the app where different sounds are played. This movement from one composition to another blends the two together forming different tonalities in the songs (Kiss, Needham 2011). Björk has been able to educate children and adults alike on how technology could be used to make art. The Biophilia project has travelled around the world teaching children about soundwaves, arpeggiators and lightning (Nicholson, 2012).
Björk has been experimenting with sounds and compositional arrangements since her genesis. Growing up in Iceland has helped in expressing her fearless true nature, in which she has successfully achieved in all her works. Embracing collaboration has allowed Björk to successfully bring her artistic concepts to life. Eventually utilising traditional classical theoretical teachings, Björk’s own compositions were able to mature. Though classical orchestral arrangements and with her curiosity in the expansion of modern technology, the hybrid of these two worlds eventually moved into iPod applications. Through education, Björk has been able to show people the wonders of sound, nature and electricity and helped in finding passion and curiosity the way she does.