A Year After 12 Weeks of Björk
Summer '24
We are coming up on a year since I listened to Björk for all 12 weeks of The Listening Journal Summer 2024.
It was a life changing experience, so much so, I couldn’t initially share too much about it.
The wisest lesson I’ve learned teaching music students for 17 years is that the connections a student discovers on their own, through their curiosity, is more impactful and valuable than anything a teacher will ever tell them.
I am not a fan of consumption culture: watching people learn vs you actually learning. I still think people would be better off deep diving into their own experience, letting their intuition lead them, rather than experiencing Björk through my eyes and ears — each individual is so unique. We all have a soul compass guiding us, with unique learning needs, life paths, desires, skills and strengths. What attracted me to Björk’s music was a pull from my soul’s journey. It was the music I needed to listen to. The music you need to hear will enter your life at the exact moment you need to hear it, like a divine soul appointment.
That being said, after I began to really listen to Björk, I realized how niche the pool is of people who get it. I ended up reading on Reddit just to share in the experience. No one in my current daily life actively listens to Björk, and THAT inspired me to share more of my Björk experience below.
PRE SUMMER 2024
I didn’t buy my first Björk album (Medúlla) till a college roommate moved in with a giant Volta poster. Medulla is the first vinyl record I ever bought. I only owned the albums: Medúlla, Vulnicura and Homogenic — and I hadn’t listened to them since the Spring of 2017.
JUNE 2024: MEDÚLLA
This felt like an unexpected undertow, and I was sucked into a vortex. Not realizing it was the 20th anniversary, I deep listened to songs off Medúlla for 30 days straight. It is a masterpiece, as masterful as any cinema classic or famous painting. To me it is like one of the seven wonders of the musical world. It is NOT road trip music, which I tried. It is best consumed on high fidelity sound, giving it concentrated attention and multiple listens.
In the last week of June, I laid down on the floor and listened to Medúlla in its entirety for seven nights in a row (something I highly recommend), giving it my full attention. One night, I was so present to the music, I felt like I was in the studio’s headphones listening live, like it cut right into my heart. Ancestors hit differently every night. I was blown away by the album’s meditation on generosity, both the giving and the receiving. It’s such a strong feminine perspective. I’m about to skip song order, but from the initial line “the pleasure is all mine, to get to be the generous one is the strongest stance” and opening question, “Who gives most?” to the question of “How am I going to make it right?” and the overwhelming feeling when someone has done something so selfless on your behalf. To nursing a child, reentering the world after giving birth, and the ancestors who came before—to the closing, “The triumph of a heart that gives all”.
What also stood out for me was the contrast sequencing of each song, for example, moving from a fire breathing dragon pursuing and demanding to know “where is the line” with overgiving, followed by walking the halls of a cathedral, pious and masterful in the aftermath.
After a month of listening to Medúlla, I could hear the structure of the first four songs from start to finish in my imagination — which was a huge accomplishment for something so complex, though I’ve forgotten parts now. Being able to recall and remember music in your imagination is a part of developing the inner ear. If you can hear it, you can play it or replicate it. Other ear changes I noticed: layered vocals or background vocals in songs landed differently for me, I heard voices in a very live way. Any music featuring drums and percussion (no drums on Medúlla) felt like a relief, and I missed the sound of drums so much. I missed simple music.
JULY 2024: DEBUT, POST, VOLTA
I decided to listen to music with more hooks, and I planned to deviate from Björk, but the same day, Whole Foods played Big Time Sensuality while I was eating my lunch — the first time I heard it. I’d never listened to Debut, ever, and it was wild to jump from Medúlla to Debut. I spent a lot of time with Debut. I really love 90s Björk and the band.
Then we had a hurricane in Texas. An 80-100 ft tall tree fell on my bedroom. Later, lying on my studio floor (I do a lot of listening on the floor) with the windows open in July heat, no electricity, I could physically remember the feeling of being a kid in the 90s with no internet. Post was loaded on my iPod, and I had the most beautiful experience hearing it for the first time in this context. I lived my 2018 summer in a Brooklyn apartment without air conditioning, and it was easy to imagine being a young person in NYC on a humid 1995 summer afternoon, no air conditioning and the windows open, hearing Post for the first time.
AUGUST: LIVE ALBUMS, HOMOGENIC, VESPERTINE, BIOPHILIA
By August, I thoroughly explored albums and individual songs off Debut, Post, Homogenic, Volta, Medúlla, listened to all of the Live Album versions (which are amazing) and checked out The Sugarcubes. On my birthday, I listened to Vespertine for the first time.
I associate most of Björk’s music with happy times (except Vulnicura) because Medúlla came into my life at a happy time. Her music is complex, and it feels easier to be with when life feels good. In August, so many sad things were happening in the world, for a week I listened to and journaled about a non-Björk pop-folk song instead. It felt safer. So simple, out of the sheer boredom of having to listen to it over and over again, I learned to sing the bass line and the melody at the same time without much thought, and then taught myself the song on guitar. That barely happened with Björk. Björk’s music felt so complex, at the time, I only wanted to listen.
A few things that caught my curiousity
Song Squences
Björk sequences song timbre and arrangements so well. In particular, the lead up to Isobel on the album Post. If you want a fantastic listening experience: Enjoy to You’ve Been Flirting Again to Isobel. Obviously it is even better if you start further back, Modern Things, or at the beginning, but the saw wave to the stripped down strings to the percussive drumming and climatic Isobel — wow. How she weaves instruments through the album is a work of art.
Timbral Palette
Before I picked Björk’s music, I set an intention at the beginning of the journal to change the way I heard production. Björk’s approach is interesting in that she keeps doing what she does as a vocalist and songwriter, but she changes the room she does it in. She changes the timbral backdrop. Because her singing stays consistent and the sound palette changes around her, her music is an incredible differentiation tool and resource for learning about timbre and sound design.
Debut Set The Tone
The gap is big between the public’s stereotype of Björk and who Björk is. Debut set the tone of her public identity. Despite Medúlla, Vulnicura or even Army of Me — Kristin Wiig made obscure references, giggles and played up the eccentric cutesy elfish vibe when she played Björk on SNL. It drove home the point, for me at least, that what we do first sets the tone for how we are seen.
Black Moon Lilith in Aquarius
One fun thing I noticed about Björk, while she is a triple Scorpio, her Black Moon Lilith is in Aquarius. Lilith is like a second Mars, it’s a way we rebel, express righteous anger, our inner power, how we stand up for and defend ourselves, our suppressed feminine rage. Aquarius is ruled by Uranus, the planet of freedom and liberation. It is unexpected, it is random, it is weird, it is eccentric, it is alien, it comes out of left field, it doesn’t do what you think it will do, it goes off script and breaks the rules — the planet rotates on its side. I once read a description of Mars in Aquarius as even surprising themselves, asking, why did I just do that? It is also a sign of technology. Black Moon Lilith in Aquarius: Leaving swan eggs on the red carpet at the Oscars ✓. Blindsiding the journalist with a physical attack at the airport ✓. Defending nature through technology ✓.
Cornucopia
I got to see Cornucopia last month in theaters. It is fantastic. I was a bit thrown by the song Sue Me (my first time hearing it), and I’ve weirdly adopted the “No!” finger dance move (she overexaggerates this movement to the music). I was ready to throw my hands up in the air for Hidden Place and Mouth’s Cradle. All of it is beautiful.
Björk's contributions to art are some of the greatest treasures on earth, and I am grateful to be a student! I hope more people listen to Björk.
SECOND SUMMER OF THE LISTENING JOURNAL!
I am doing a limited print of The Listening Journal 2.0 this year! If you’re interested in trying it or participating, or if you’d like to learn more, please send me a DM here on Substack or on Instagram! I would love to have you! There will be TBD Zoom meet ups for music sharing. The journal starts with an intention setting questionnaire, followed by week by week journaling on focused listening, A/B listening prompts, weekly experiments, song analysis pages and some listening tips in the back. $22 + free shipping! I am taking orders now through June 25!
Do you have a favorite Björk song?
Please share in the comments!