Debut

Björk

1993: Elektra D 160021

1. Human Behaviour
2. Crying
3. Venus as a Boy
4. There’s More to Life Than This
5. Like Someone in Love
6. Big Time Sensuality
7. One Day
8. Aeroplane
9. Come to Me
10. Violently Happy
11. The Anchor Song

When I first heard this album from beginning to end, in Glasgow in 1994, when I was on assignment for Wizards of the Coast, I was far more impressed than I had been by scattershot listenings. So impressed, in fact, that I announced to coworkers there and in the company’s U.S. office that I wished to be known as “Mjärk” for the rest of the day. (The marvelous Jared Earle very helpfully created an email alias with that name and kept it active for nearly a year.) I’d heard a few of the singles but had never seen the videos and only had the dimmest idea of who Björk was, so I kind of backed into this album later than I would have liked. I still enjoy it, though almost exclusively on headphones. Something about it just doesn’t feel right when I hear it on speakers, maybe because of the sense of intimacy she gives songs such as “The Anchor Song” and “Like Someone In Love;” I feel much the same way about her latest, Vespertine.

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Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.