202. Björk, "Homogenic"

 


I really disliked this record!  I mean, out of 500 albums, there are going to be a few that I really don't like, but I've been generally surprised at how few that turned out that way.  This, however, is one of them.

I'm not even sure why!  In its perfect 10 review, Pitchfork called it "a strange, captivating mix of impulses, with seesawing drones exploding into lush, neo-classical passages."  I guess that's true!  It's definitely strange.

Let's take an example.  The 8th song, "Alarm Call," starts out sounding vaguely trip-hoppy (in fact, the whole album nods at trip-hop), and then Bjork's powerful voice comes in, singing a detached, flowy melody.  It's not really a coherent melody in the way I think of as a melody; if pressed, I would never be able to recreate it.  Maybe that's why this album was so hard for me - she ignores all the conventions of song structure and melody and coherence that I'm comfortable with.  That's thrilling for a lot of people, but I'm a musical peasant and this is like me toiling in the field with my wooden hoe and waiting to hear the church bell so I know my labor is done and then looking up in the sky and seeing a UFO made out of disco balls cruising along shooting out lasers and dropping ice bombs.  I would not be able to even comprehend what I was seeing.  That's me with this album.  I'm the peasant who's never even seen the color pink and now this comes along.

The last Bjork album we saw (Post, at #289), was a grower for me; I thought it was OK and then liked it more the more I listened to it.  I did not have a similar experience with this album.  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Not mine.

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