by saintsimon » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:59 pm
<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just don't get why guys always go ga-ga over Bjork. Ugh.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>well i will just say a few words and let folks get back to FourthBase's fine thread.<br><br>i can certainly understand why some do not care for bjork. she at times comes across as a perpetual adolescent, a precocious faerie, an icelandic peter pan. as she ages, this act gets harder to pull off. blossom dearie can keep it up well into her eighties...we will have to see how bjork fares.<br><br>to bring kubrik/nabokov back in to the discussion for a moment, there is a lolita-like quality to her which will intrigue some and irritate others. but for what it is worth, i know many more women who like her than men.<br><br>having said this, in the often desolate landscape of "pop music," (and i would argue that this is where bjork has placed herself, and where she is to be evaluated), she is something of a genius. more than twenty five years into her career, she is still producing music that is often unlike what has come before, and yet is utterly recognizable as her own. novelty appears effortless to her, and so i have to assume she has an incredible imagination. and she appreciates this in her fans: ignoring copyright issues to the extent possible, she encourages her fans to make "mixes" or different versions of her songs, many of which are better than her own arrangements and which she cheerfully posts on her website. although not a formally trained singer, her voice has an enormous tonal range and by this i also mean emotional range. there's a tenderness at times that creates a stunning and unsettling sense of vulnerability. one may find this laughable; others of us will empathize (this is what lars von trier exploited in his film dancer in the dark -- and bjork felt so manipulated she swore she would never act again, this despite being nominated for an academy award as i mentioned earlier). at other times she can quite literally scream a primal scream that i wonder might be heard in other worlds, a testament to the suffering on this planet.<br><br>she is not for everyone. but i, for one, am glad she exists, and hasn't been swallowed up by the "entertainment industry" and turned into something quite different than what she is now. she is a talented person who has found her voice, and who obviously works very hard to revise that voice.<br><br>there was a fairly decent article about her in the new yorker earlier this year i think. unfortunately, i couldn't find it online. <p></p><i></i>
