BjöRK- THe uLTiMaTe iNTiMaTe
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Björk Guðmundsdóttir, daughter of Hildur Hauksdóttir and Gudmundur Gunnarsson, was born november 21st 1965. She has three sisters and three brothers by three different mothers and three different fathers.
I wonder how that works...six children from six different people...
From the age of 6 to 14 she went to Reykjaviks Musicshool. There she learnt to play the piano and the flute.
I also learned how to play the flute but instead of the piano I learned the organ...it was not fun
She released her first album as soon as 1977, only 11 years old. It contains songs with covers of for example Stevie Wonder and The Beatles and Icelandic singers in a seventies style.
It should be noted that these covers were translated into Icelandic and then sung...
As a child she was sometimes a bit of a loner, the other children would sometimes tease her because of her oriental appearance, which is uncommon in Iceland, and she was called "chinagirl". She learned to manage on her own and became a strong individual.
I was also called a similar name. They called me "Peking Duck"...cuz I looked Asian and I was German...once again...like the organ experience...it was not fun
As a teenager she formed several bands and experimented with punk and new wave music. She formed bands like Spit and snot , Exodus (79- 80) Tappi Tikarrass (81- 83) and Kukl (84- 86),and released a few albums with some of them. Later she formed the band Sykurmolarnir (the Sugarcubes) in 1986 with a couple of friends.
Here's a bit about the bands that Björk was in...
SPIT AND SNOT
Björk and her girlfriends formed the group "Spit and Snot" when the punk wave arrived to Iceland. As she felt like the rythm in the band, she played the drums. They had big attitude problems and the limitations punk meant didnt capture Björks attention for long so she moved on, and by the age of 14 she met a new crowd.
EXODUS
This band was into jazz-fusion and Björk got very inspired by Ella Fitzgerald. All that this band accomplished was a garage-recorded tape and a TV performace, and her next project, JAM, only lasted one gig and nobody remembers how they sounded.
TAPPI TIKARRASS
By this time Björk had finished musicshool, and now returned to the wonderful world of pop, as a part of the group Tappi Tikarrass. The name means "cork the bitch's ass" and is based on an obscene Icelandic saying: 'It fits like a cork in a bitch's ass', meaning that something fits perfectly. Tappi released two album; 'Bitið Fast I Vitið' and 'Miranda', but none of them became any bestsellers. They were on the other hand a great liveband. Two bands they often played with were Purrkurr Pillnikk and Þeyr.
Tappi was featured in 'Rokk I Reykjavík' in 1982, a documetary about Icelands youth. They chose to have the 16 year old Björk as their covergirl.
When the group was as most popular, the basist Eythor decided to quit the band, and Björk didnt mind since she too was getting pretty tired of it. She had already started to play keyboard in the band Cactus to get money. She also sang a bit in the band Rokka Rokka Drum, where Einar Melax and Þór Eldon played bass and guitar. By that time Þór had become Björks first big love, and love was something she never had experienced before. Björk released a little book with poems and pictures she painted herself.
KUKL
This band was formed when Asmundur 'Asi' Jonsson was quitting his job as a DJ and wanted to go out with a bang. He gathered those who were considered the most extreme Icelandic artists for his last show.There was Einar Örn and Einar Melax from Purrkurr Pillnikk, Gulli 'God Krist' Óttarson, Siggi Baldursson and Birgir Morgensen from Þeyr and of course Björk. After two weeks of writing and rehearsing thay made the performance under the name Kukl, which means witchcraft. This gig made them all very excited and they decided to make the group permanent.
Kukl were a dead serious group, it was almost a matter of life and death. Björk often sang with her back turned to the audience and you cn still hear in their albums how intense they were. This was where you first could see Björk as we see her today, howling, yelling, shrieking and chanting.
Kukl released two albums, 'The Eye' and later on 'Holidays In Europe (The naughty nought)'
Björk broke up with Þór but in a matter or months she discovered that she was pregnant. She was happy at first, but then she got scared, and even made an appointment to get an abortion. Luckily, she didn't go, and she kept on touring with Kukl.
Kukl got so intense in the end and the group disbanded due to that Gulli repeatedly didnt show up to the rehearsals, and when he finally did, he was too drunk to rehearse anyway.
Björk and Þór moved back to Iceland where she the 8th of june 1986 gave birth to a beautiful son. They gave him the name Sindri (after the blacksmith who made the scandinavian god Thor's hammer). His full name is Sindri Eldon Þórsson.
By this time Þór and Einar started a company called "Smekkeleysa" ('Bad Taste')
She also starred in a Icelandic movie in 1987, 'The Juniper Tree' , a tale about Margit, played by Björk, and her older sister Katla, who flee across the country after their mother has been burned at the stake for practising witchcraft.
They picked her because she looked so young.
THE SUGARCUBES
The Bad Taste crew got together and started a group. There was Björk, Siggi Baldursson, Einar Örn and Einar Melax, Þór Eldon, Brági Ólafsson and Fridrik Erlingsson. After considering which name would be the silliest for a band to be called, they decided to call the group 'Sykurmolar', or 'The Sugarcubes'.
They released their first album in 1988, and the title was a quote from an Icelandic poet; 'Life's Too Good!'
This album was a lovely mixture of delicious popsongs. Björks voice really fit with this kind of music, people had a harder time accepting Einar Örn's brutal shouting and growling. They were an exciting contrast and either you hated him or you loved him. The 'Cubes did what Kukl had tried to do for ages. They put Iceland on the map. The Sugarcubes soon became very hyped, not only in Iceland, but all over the world.
New singles were recorded and soon they released another album, this time with a quote from 'Mr. Toad' (from the book 'The wind in the willows' by Kenneth Grahame) "Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week"
Also this album was a sweet mixture of multicolored pop. This time Björk sang about Televisions, Bees, Menu's, water and planets.
The critics were'nt as delighted. In their opinion, Einar had gotten totally out of control and he drowned Björks sweet voice with loud, cocky babbling.
Meanwhile, Björk decided to do something she had been wanting to do since 1987; in only two days she, together with jazz trio 'Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar', made an album with icelandic versions of old showtunes, jazz- and popsongs like "Oh Mein Papa"
The album was named after the title song: Gling-Gló
In 1992 The Sugarcubes released their third and last album. This too had a title based on a quote. This time it was from a japanese Coca Cola commercial; "Stick Around For Joy"
The songs on this album were happier and in a more sing-along style, and even Einar had cooled down a bit. Many say that this is their greatest album.
Who says so? you ask - I do...I LOVE this album :)
SOLO
After five years with The Sugarcubes Björk felt restless once again, and she felt they had done all they could as a band. So in late 1992 she packed up and moved to Little Venice in London together with 7 year old Sindri. This time she wanted to do something completely different.
Her first solo album, Debut, was released in 1993 and it instantly became all the critics favourite album. Although it was far from being her debut album. It was a debut in the sense that it was her fist completely own record. She had recorded most songs outdoors, on the beach so she could run around and hide or walk by the water and sing to the stars. On Debut there was disco, there were ballads, there was something for everyone.
The powerful 'Violently Happy', the sensual 'Venus As A Boy' or the romantic 'Like Someone In Love'. Most critics agreed that this album was unique, daring, fresh, seductive, complete. After a while Björk thought of Debut as being too controlled and shallow, and wanted to make new music that focused on the musical energy itself. Her next album was braver. Bold sambabeats, throbbing rythms and whispering lyrics.
The music on this new album was a greeting home to Iceland, like a letter to her native land telling them how she is doing. Thereby it got the name Post. The songs were more poweful this time, there is 'Hyperballad', telling us about how life on the top of a mountain is, there is 'Isobel', a tale about what happens when people get too smart and greedy, there is the diary-like 'Possibly Maybe', a song about love from the first crush to a crushing breakup and it all ends with the whispering, subtle 'Headphones', a beautiful song she wrote to Graham Massey as a thank for sending her tapes she could fall asleep to during those restless nights. All this made Post the perfect album to follow Debut.
In 1996 Björk released her third album Telegram. The album contains new mixes and bold versions of the songs from Post. Most of the mixes can be found on already released singles, to the true collectors grief. This album is the end of the Post era. Björk now sets sail for new horizons. We are all longing for a new album with real, new songs!
Her next album, Homogenic is scheduled to be released in the autumn of 1997. According to Björk herself; "It's going to be bloody!"
It's also going to have a lot of strings on it...so watch out...whatever...it... is...it'll...be...great...