Four years ago on Coney Island I had one of my all-time favorite concert going experiences. It left me exhilarated and completely exhausted. For two hours me and a couple of thousand people danced and sang along with Bjork Guðmundsdóttir and we all left feeling like the world ain't too bad a place.
Such is the power of the Icelandic nymph.
Bjork is the most important musical artist of the late twentieth century. There is no single artist or group that can match the fierce intelligence of her songwriting combined with the alien beauty of her voice. The soundscapes she chooses to inhabit are equally complex and peculiar. Compositions tend to be amalgamations of electronica, R&B and pop that make her at once indefinable and accessible. I suppose she’d be defined as pop, but when her work is taken as a whole, it seems to transcend the genre (and really all genres).
I find most modern songs about romance to be mawkish and simple-minded. Singers coo “ooh baby” a hundred times and furiously emote about how horny somebody makes them or how they were hurt when such-and-such was seen at the movies with so-and-so. This problem extends beyond the teeny-bopper pop tarts from whom this type of pabulum is expected. There is a dearth of popular artists making really intelligent music (I hear the
Arcade Fire’s not too shabby, but they’re “NYC/L.A.-popular” which is a different kind of popularity).
Bjork manages to make love songs that are deeply personal yet devoid of sentimentality. And she is a woman very in touch with her own sexuality. Her songs make voyeurs out of her listeners. Excerpt from “Cocoon” off Vespertine: “He slides inside/half-awake, half-asleep/we faint back into sleephood/when I wake up the second time/in his arms gorgeousness/he’s still inside me.” She aspirates half of the lyrics increasing the sensuousness almost to the point of discomfort for the listener (the song still makes me blush after countless listenings). Or take these lyrics from Possibly Maybe: “Mon petite vulcan/Your eruptions and disasters/I keep calm/Admiring your lava/I keep calm”
and “Since we broke-up/I’m using lipstick again/I suck my tongue/In remembrance of you.” Wow.
Another note about her lyrics: they don’t rhyme. That might not seem like a huge deal, but I think it is. It forces the listener to really engage with the song, because you can’t anticipate what is going to be said next. This makes multiple listenings far more rewarding than the average pop song (at least to me).
As for the concert:
The concert was the equivalent of being invited into a painter’s studio. Half the songs she performed were from the upcoming album, Volta. Some worked, some really worked and others didn’t connect with me. Yet, the experience was never less than fascinating. She opened with her new single Earth Invaders, a hyperkinetic sugar rush of a song. The accompanying horn/vocal section (all female; each played a horn and sang) was (we were told at the end of the set) a group from Iceland.
There was clarity in her voice, still as powerful as ever. It filled Radio City Music Hall and at times sent shivers to my spine. (She always elicits laughs from the audience when she utters her mouse-like “thank you” after completing each song.) When she let loose with songs like “Pluto”, the place just erupted (during songs like that and “Army of Me”, I really wished the concert was outdoors or in a place like the Roseland so you could feel the entire audience reacting to the music).
Bjork brought out a few guests to help her perform the new material. Most were musicians playing an instrument specific to the given song. One was a fellow vocalist who I believe was named Anthony. Anthony and Bjork performed a very awkward duet. I’ll reserve judgment for the song until I hear it on the album, but the performance left a little to be desired. I forgave the song for not working, because it was so amusing to watch Bjork interact with another vocalist. It was like watching two kids at a high-school talent show. For most of the song they were trying to coordinate their dance movements which consisted of both swaying back and forth as if about to slamdance with each other (in fact the swaying got so pitched that Anthony started jumping up and down like some kind of over-excited Labrador; weirdest shite I’ve ever seen).
There was a generous helping of songs from all her albums save Selma Songs. The stage was full of equipment and attention-grabbing devices (lasers, projection screens, flags…), but it never took away from her presence. My eyes stayed fixed on her most of the time, intrigued by her complete submersion into the songs.
The only gamble that didn’t pay off for me was the performance of certain songs from Medulla, the album composed with mostly human vocals. A song like “Where Is The Line” needs that ethereal vocal arrangement to be effective. Conventional instruments substituted in for all the creative vocal pyrotechnics did not do the song justice.
The set was short and sweet. She finished in roughly 1 hr and 20mins including encore. The crowd would have loved to stick around for another hour easily. I can’t really compare this concert to the other one I saw four years ago. I enjoyed the Coney Island concert, because it was a completely visceral experience. This concert I enjoyed in a different capacity. It gave a glimpse into how the mind of one of my favorite artists works.
Required Bjork listening:
Venus as a Boy – Debut
Human Behavior - Debut
It’s Oh So Quiet – Post
Army of Me – Post
Possibly Maybe – Post
Joga – Homogenic
Unravel – Homogenic
Bachelorette – Homogenic
Pagan Poetry – Vespertine
Heirloom – Vespertine
Oceania – Medulla
Where is the Line - Medulla
