Björk - Homogenic

33⅓ Main Series #127

by Emily MacKay

In recent years, Bjork's artistry has become ever more ambitious and ever more respected. With the release of her conceptual app-album Biophilia in 2011, and a huge retrospective exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art coinciding with her most recent album, Vulnicura, in 2015, her status as artpop auteur has been secured. The album that made all this possible, though is 1997's Homogenic, a turning point in Bjork's career and still among her finest musical achievements. Produced under great strain, it moves beyond the stylistic magpie rush of Debut and the urbanophile future-pop of Post, to something darker, stronger and braver, full of dramatic assertions of independence, sharp, stuttering beats, rich strings and raw outbursts of noise. It created, as the Alexander McQueen designed sleeve clearly asserted, a new Bjork, one who would never stop hunting.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art

199 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2017

Reviews

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se anche voi, come me, siete ossessionati dalla musica di Björk, DOVETE LEGGERLO.
Emily MacKay, critico musicale, analizza l'album più iconico e celebrato della cantante islandese in modo certosino, inquadrando tutti gli aspetti legati alla scrittura dell'album e la sua produzione, oltre che il delicato periodo che la nana (così la chiamo affettuosamente) stava vivendo all'epoca e che ha, inevitabilmente, influenzato le sue nuove canzoni: lo scandalo "Welcome to Bangkok", la tormentata relazione con Goldie, il pacco-bomba e il suicidio di un suo fan-stalker, i paparazzi che le invadevano il privato e la soffocavano (addirittura, cit., mentre era seduta al gabinetto)...
Il libro affronta anche topic molto interessanti e attuali, come le difficoltà che una musicista donna deve affrontare in un mondo estremamente maschilista come la musica. Da non perdere.

[Alex Sarll]

There are any number of ways to write a 33 1/3, but this excellent entry is pretty much a type specimen: find a significant artist, pick a key album, then go deep into its specifics. The more detailed, the better, so long as it’s all enlightening rather than merely trainspottery; Mackay looks at everything from rejected tracklistings and mixes, to where the mics were placed on the cellos, but always in service of what such specifics mean for the artistic goals and emotional impact of the finished piece. Context is good, too: it’s strange now to be reminded that back when Homogenic came out, most of the media treated Björk as a comedy pixie, at least until the awful incident which saw her consider quitting music but instead ended up being the piece of grit from which this album’s pearl came*. Mackay is excellent on the tensions of this; one winces at some of the exoticism applied to Björk in the UK music press (one reviewer’s sealclubbing/nightclubbing gag probably wouldn’t pass muster today), but at other times it was a trope with which the singer would happily play along. Then too, even in Iceland she’d been regarded as an exotic outsider, her looks seeing her nicknamed ‘China girl’ as a kid, and there’s a sense that it was being outside her homeland which allowed her, circa Homogenic, to make her peace with her roots and her early classical education, and assimilate them into her work. And this sense of synthesis carries over into the recurring theme here: that from Homogenic onwards, if not before, Björk has been determined to break down false dichotomies between nature and technology. As she pointed out, all that time ago, before anyone had written asinine, slappable Guardian columns about how much realer life was without gadgets: all that distinguishes technology from nature is time. You see a log cabin now, you think of it as part of a natural scene, but once that was new tech. Synths are as natural as violins are as natural as birds’ nests. And it’s the responsibility of all of us, but especially artists, to ensure that the new spaces technology opens up have heart and humanity brought into them, because corporations aren’t going to ensure that themselves.

There’s plenty more, too – an impressive amount packed into such a slim volume. Not always strictly about Homogenic, either. Talking about Björk’s love of collaboration, Mackay gets into the way it wouldn’t always sit right with the auteur narrative beloved of more rockist writers, the way they expected a genius to be a (presumably male) lone songwriter and tended to attribute Björk’s beats to those working with her, while she herself was assumed to be some kind of idiot savant. And in the course of this we also learn that lines in ‘Big Time Sensuality’ which you’d assume were to a lover in fact concerned collaboration and were directed at Nellee Hooper; they were about making sweet music together, but literally. My other favourite titbit regarding lyrics: 'Army of Me’ very nearly included the line 'you're worse than Morrissey’. If only she’d release that version now… There’s a whole strand regarding Björk’s ‘paneroticism’; the Story of O bits were a particular surprise given I was in part reading this as light relief from a Kathy Acker biography. And I’ve never heard of anyone with such a charmingly innocent take on The Story of the Eye! This of course ties in with Chris Cunningham’s stupendously late video for the album’s final track, ‘All is Full of Love’ ("‘It was perfect,’ said Cunningham. ‘I got to play around with the two things I was into as a teenager: robots and porn.’”), and takes us back to the permeable line between natural and mechanical, as well as providing a nice capstone to an account of the album’s visual incarnations (including those rejected because, at the time, they would have been unrealistically expensive; nowadays you could probably get half of them done by a kid with a laptop).

Netgalley copies are, after all, advance proofs, but this one had a particularly odd glitch - all instances of the letter groupings 'fi' and 'fl' had been deleted. But certain words crop up often enough that within a chapter or two you're reading 'dened' and 'rst' quite naturally – yet still noticing their frequency in a way you might not in a clean text.
(Conversely, every so often the letters ‘dP’ appear for no apparent reason, and without offering similar enlightenment)

*Specifically, the racist fan who killed himself and sent her an acid bomb over her relationship with Goldie - again, something I’d entirely forgotten until I saw it mentioned here and thought oh yes, of course, that wanker! Weird how even a big story one lived through can fade so thoroughly.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago my old boss gave us all $200 gift cards for Amazon for the holidays. Because I didn’t expect it, and it was essentially free money to me, I spent all my money on 33 1/3 books and this was one of them. And what an issue it was!

I loved this book. I really enjoyed Emily McKay’s well researched and well thought out 333 addition for an album that is so important to me and is so transformational in my own personal history as a music listener, a music nerd if you will.

I’ve always been a fan of Björk and it’s so funny because when I was a kid she scared me to death. The video for Big Time Sensuality freaked me out… But the older I got the more her music made sense to me and then when I heard Homogenic I felt something shifted inside of me that changed my understanding of the world and I know that sounds like hyperbole and to a 5% degree it is, but to a 95% degree it’s completely factual.

Björk is a huge fan of both Wu Tang and Public Enemy but couldn’t make it work with the Wu enough to get a song out / that’s sad.. we’ll never know what we missed out on. Björk wanted to do a song with Beyoncé on Medulla. I love that Missy has sampled Björk’s music in her work. Björk is inspirational, and connected to culture; her music is universal and different. I think she’s one of the few artists who makes completely unique and 1-of-1 sounding music that can’t even be duplicated.

Björk says it’s really hard to make good pop, but it’s obvious that she does it so well!

It’s intriguing the ways that fans don’t always step into the reality of the ways that their actions might harm an artist whether or not they love them or not. I’m speaking about Björk’s experience processing the suicide and attempted harm one of her maniacal fans engaged in over the fact that she was engaged to be married to a Black man. Emily McKay captured those moments with clarity instantly pushing sometimes opaque but always lurking memories to the forefront when one thinks about Björk.

I geeked out reading about her artistry and collaborations. Reading about Björk’s Homogenic album cover instantly made me realize how much I can’t wait for someone to write about Missy’s Da Real World, Grimes Visions or Art Angels album, Shygirl’s Alias, and/or Rosalia’s Motomami! All of course inspired by the legendary Björk but albums that are all by strong women who are game changers in their own right!

I have so many more 333 books to get through, I love them all. It’s really such a joy to dive deep and swim through an album or the ideas that an album can inspire. I hope to read more and more of these forever.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a small confession

I have never heard Homogenic, until yesterday (April 5th)

Now don't get me wrong. I have all of Bjork's main albums and listened to them many times (Medulla is my fave, Biophilia is the least) but I have never been able to find a copy of Homogenic and for some weird reason Spotify and my computer do not get along.

But it exists out there and as a first listen, it was an excellent one. The stand out track being Alarm Call.

Anyways Homogenic is an important album in Bjork's mighty discography as it was the first album she had 100% control on, had a heavy emphasis on electronic music, is the first proper homage to her native Iceland and in the process convinced the media that she just wasn't some kooky elfin oddity. I also see it as the bridge to the more experimental work she would pursue later on. Also it is worth noting that she experienced some traumatic events in the year she was recording this album and that mood fed itself into the record.

Emily MacKay's volume displays her adoration for Bjork and there's a lot of detail but despite all the information, this book is not one huge trivia dump, it is a serious exploration of Bjork's heritage, the influences behind Homogenic and what Bjork was going through while recording it. Also there's interpretations of the Homogenic promo videosand how Bjork embraced the nascent World Wide Web. There's also interviews with people who were involved such as Eno collaborator Markus Dravs and Guy Sigisworth, who give some interesting information about the recording techniques. Not to mention other people such as author Sjon (who wrote the lyrics to bachelorette) Bjork's nanny and even the famous Joga who all had their part in this album.

This volume is a joy to read. I had a lot of fun reading about this essential album and is an immersive experience.

So far Homogenic the last one in the 33 1/3 series for now (four new volumes are coming out in April) so it's ending on a high (pitched) note.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was recently reminded what a fantastic record 'Homogenic' is, and how she came to make something so obsessively coherent, driven and emotionally wrenching in response to both personal disaster and critical condescension is very well explained here. There's also much on Bjork's sometimes interesting and sometimes terribly naff personal mythology, on which I was most intrigued by the passages on her relation to feminism in the 1990s, and how someone who obviously was a feminist felt impelled to distance herself from it due to, well, the 1990s. Long 1990s Podcast Boys - episode on Bjork when?

[Gastón · Rating 3 out of 5]

Está bien, interesante disección sobre lo que implica realizar un álbum para Björk. Pasando de la forma y la temática creo que el libro está bien. Es ágil de leer, casi todo lo postulado está sobre el soporte de una cita de alguna entrevista y deja mucho material para revisar si el lector quisiera hacerlo.

[Nora Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok sometimes dragged/had repetition problem, but I got crazyyy good insight into Björk’s beautiful mind and process 🫦🫦🫦🫦 Best album 4evr amen

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is everything that a book about an album should be, encapsulating not just the narrative of how Bjork's "Homogenic" was made, but giving an overview of Bjork's career, personal challenges, relationship with the press, evolving musical and visual style, and the influence of her Icelandic heritage. All in 120-something pages! So much is explained with actual quotes from Bjork herself, as well as her collaborators. It's great to learn the context of so many of Bjork's songs, images, and videos; I had to go back and listen to the album again and again as I read this book. If the book has a flaw, it's that the author can sometimes be a bit too fawning over Bjork, and this album in particular; and yet, that positive perspective enables the author to scathingly (and deservedly!) call out many reviewers through the years whose criticism, perpetuating the tired cliche of Bjork was a feral child dependent on others, reeked of sexism and cultural elitism.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved reading this about one of my favourite albums - can’t help but wanting the writers personal experience with the album though

[tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good one! though the mercifully brief technooptimist stuff at the end about our exciting new virtual reality future and how it’s no more alienating than letter-writing or the telephone is both boring, as people talking about virtual reality inevitably is, and seems particularly sourly dated in the wake of the ludicrous Grimes, her technofascist husband and their cohort.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting insights into Bjork's music and process, which is pretty much all you could ask from a book in this series. This book was... fine? It wasn't bad but it slipped through my brain and left none of itself behind.

[John Plowright · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a given that all of the authors of books in Bloomsbury’s Thirty-three and a Third series are fans of the artists and albums that they’ve chosen to write about. But sometimes love is not all you need. A fan, by definition, is uncritical but these particular fans cannot afford to be.

They need to re-route to their head something which was successfully addressed to their heart, so as to be able to articulate precisely what it is that excites their affection and enthusiasm, enabling the fellow fan-reader to be better informed about and more assured in their own allegiance. Emily Mackay’s ‘Björk’s Homogenic’ succeeds admirably in this regard, making it one of the best products in this notoriously patchy brand.

Although unable to speak with Alexander McQueen (who styled the album cover and who died in 2010); Mark Bell (a Homogenic co-producer, who died in 2014); Howie B (another co-producer); Mark Stent and Marcus De Vries (who respectively mixed and recorded the album); the various video directors; or Björk herself, Mackay, in addition to trawling the secondary literature, has diligently and revealingly conversed with Guy Sigsworth (the album’s third co-producer); Markus Dravs (who principally programmed the album’s beats); Eumir Deodato (who was responsible for the string arrangements); Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson (aka Sjón, Björk intimate and lyrical collaborator); Paul White and Alistair Beattie (album designers); Einar Örn Benediktsson (fellow former Sugarcubes band member and Björk website designer); and even Professor Carolyne Larrington (expert in Norse mythology).

The result is a highly readable and illuminating guide to all aspects of the Icelandic shapeshifter’s stunningly ambitious third album, which confirmed her as a mature talent with a unique artistic voice.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book can never come out and admit that this album was where Bjork got too pretentious and started losing all pop prestige in favour of arty-farty stuff and far too many re-releases, live sets, box sets, and digital virtual gumf, it is a musicologist's masterclass of studying a classy album in an equally classy way. The writing is good enough to sway the passing curious as well as the fan, and it just begs you to play the music it so informatively discusses. Everything from the inspirations for the composition to the video singles' history and how it's reflected on by Bjork's oeuvre to this day is covered, in a book that must surely succeed in giving even the most encyclopaedically-minded fan something new. So much of this series just does NOT have any link with my taste in music, but when it does it's brilliant.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

As MacKay documents in detail here, Homogenic was Björk's attempt to create a work of "pure Björk". Likewise, a primary goal of this volume is to define what "pure Björk" looks and sounds like. The answers seem to come far easier to MacKay than they would to me; a shortcoming of this volume is the feeling, at the end, that something about Björk - what makes her tick, what makes this album one of the greatest ever - is left unexplained or unconsidered. Avoiding heady talk of the sublime contradictions latent in Björk's music, though, may be the key to the elegance and lucidity of this volume. Every sentence here both provides us with insider-information and insight and advances the narrative, idea, or argument of the chapter. MacKay is a masterful music writer.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into not only my favourite Björk album, but one of my favourite albums of all time - 1997’s ‘Homogenic’. This book interprets this groundbreaking album as a major turning point in the career of Björk, seeing her break away from the hyperactive elfin girl she portrayed in her previous works, ‘Debut’ and ‘Post’. In ‘Homogenic’, she boldly reinvents herself into something altogether more complex and beguiling, following the emotional trauma caused by celebrity culture, intrusive journalists, failed relationships and the tragic suicide of her deranged stalker. Mackay explores the major themes and motifs that the album introduces - sex, gender, romantic love, nature, Iceland, identity, technology, virtual reality - and which continue to reverberate through Björk’s music and visual art. And it isn’t merely restricted to the one album; it presents a wonderfully broad picture of Björk’s career, her biography and her musical collaborators.

With perceptive and illuminating analyses of the imagery, lyrics, noises, personas, loves and losses of Björk, Emily Mackay reveals her subject to be an artist who defies categorisation, who values freedom and experimentation, and the album ‘Homogenic’ as the catalyst for her shapeshifting creative identity.

[Aiden Sartain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tales, stories, feelings, people, and moments that helped inspire and create one of the most important albums in pop culture, by someone who has helped shaped our transition into the 21st Century through glimpses of creativity in the form of music, video, and whatever might be in between. That's what this is about. Written by someone who loves this album more than I do, you get to see the tools that were forged and made to create this album, and what later works were forged by Homogenic in the future. Through cuts of interviews, and recollections of culture's timely views and climates, you get a look at the true human that she is, one that should be respected and treated as such. It's something she hasn't gotten for a lot of her life in the spotlight, but I'm sure she knows and should be proud to help mother music into this progressive and ever-exploring landscape that we all get to run through. A great and informative work, and compiled in a way that's engaging, and intriguing, while still making sense from a documentarian standpoint. Hell yea

8/10

[Cenhner Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

¿Esperaba otra cosa?

A ver, es que Homogenic es un disco único. Björk es una artista única. ¿Qué podía decir un libro sobre Homogenic? Dicen que escribir sobre música es como bailar sobre arquitectura. ¿Qué esperaba yo de este libro?

Supongo que quería el chisme. Cómo se hizo cada canción, cómo se escribió cada letra, cosas que uno no sabía del disco después de llevar treinta años escuchándolo.
Algunas cosas hay, como que en un momento Homogenic se había pensado como un disco de realidad virtual, o que "Army of me" en un momento tuvo una línea que era "You are like Morrissey".
Pero la mayor parte del libro es "Homogenic habla sobre ser islandesa", "Homogenic habla sobre el amor", "Homogenic es feminista", y dale que dale con la misma cantinela todo el capítulo. Todo tiene citas a cagarse, lo cual está buenísimo y le da una seriedad al libro que casi casi parece una tesis doctoral.

Pero yo quería chisme.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book 1 of my #2020readingchallenge is "Homogenic" by Emily Mackay, part of the 33 1/3 series (books about specific albums).

I love Bjork. I never thought she was kooky or quirky, she is way too talented and visionary to be reduced to those terms. 'Homogenic' isn't just my favorite album of hers, it's one of my favorite albums period. This book breaks every step of the process down -- there is so much I never knew about her collaborations, a fan's suicide, the breakups and breakdowns. All the while Bjork remained a fearless artist and musician.

The book does tend to drag. I found myself pushing through some of the text, which is a shame because Bjork herself is a page-turner, but alas this book is not.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The bad thing about this series, and being a weird completist, is that sometimes you know books are going to fail. This is not on MacKay at all; she did a wonderful job with the organization, the usage of quotes, etc. But, while I felt she did an adequate job of telling the story of Homogenic, I just didn't care about the album at all...and that's no fault of anyone, but perhaps reflected in my rating. I've tried to get into Bjork; I even waited for an hour at Day for Night for the 3D experience...just never quite connected. And thus, that was always my issue with this book.

[Mané · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Porque al final la humanidad vencerá”.

Qué bonito un libro como este que ya no solo cuenta la historia alrededor de uno de los discos más importantes de la música, si no que habla de todos nosotros.

Sobre abrazar las raíces, encontrar la voz y darse cuenta que el amor es todo lo que importa y tenemos.

[Steve Lowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful

Unpacking Björk and relating everything in that analysis back to her Homogenic album is an ambitious project which the author pulls off in style. A very interesting read, especially if you are a somewhat nerdy Björk fan.

[Luis Omar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesante y breve libro sobre la creación del disco Homogenic de Björk. Lo interesante es que la autora profundiza en la creación y composición de los temas de disco, sonidos y la tecnología que se uso por primera vez en 1997.

[Belén Medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi primer acercamiento a Björk, me pareció excelente y muy contundente en la explicitación de la relación tecno-pagana o tecnología-naturaleza en el devenir de la carrera de la artista. Por momentos reiterativos, pero es un dato menor.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads like an erudite (bordering on pedantic at times) honors thesis. Elevates the subject. 4 instead of 5 stars due to the repetitious passages.

[Sam Levatich · Rating 4 out of 5]

great dive into a great album, with some great textural details from bjork herself and on how the album came to be

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Homogenic so loved this.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bjork deserves more credit for producing her art and putting Iceland on the map. She'll always be known for being kooky and weird, but that doesn't do her talent justice. Emily tells a great story.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subject matter is fascinating and the writing quite good. My only (tiny) complaint is that the books ends very abruptly, but maybe that's common with these 33 1/3 books? Still a great read.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good music writing about an excellent album. Like most 33 1/3 books, it’s probably just for the fans.

[juicyD · Rating 4 out of 5]

she could fix me