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"Björk's Affairs"
The matter of a proposed forthcoming album of remixes of
Debut is causing some friction between the singer and her record
company. The record company calls it Björk's Affairs. Björk
currently prefers to call it All The Remixes From The Same Album For
Those People Who Are Not Into White Labels. I don't really want to
put them out. We did a lot of remixes because I like it, there's a
lot of remixers I really respect. I like different points of view, I
love the thrill of being in control of one song and then giving it
to someone else to get their view of it. But I don't really want to
put it out, not yet. It's a bit early - maybe next year.
(VOX, december 1993)
'Human Behaviour'
After the Sugarcubes, I guess I had a mixture of liberation
and fear. It had been obvious for a while in the band that I had
different tastes than the rest. That's fair enough - there's no such
thing as correct taste. I wrote the melody for 'Human Behaviour' as
a kid. A lot of the melodies on Debut I wrote as a teenager and put
aside because I was in punk bands and they weren't punk. The lyric
is almost like a child's point of view and the video that I did with
Michel Gondry was based on childhood memories. Have I worked out
human behaviour? I guess not.
(Record Collector, August 2002)
'Play Dead'
I'd just written Debut when I was asked to do this song for
'The Young Americans'. I watched the film and wrote 'Play Dead'
based on the main character. It was actually fun because the
character in the film was suffering and going through hardcore tough
times and at the time I was at my happiest. It was quite liberating
to sit down after writing a whole album to write from someone else's
point of view. The particular character was pretty fucked up, you
know. In the film, he had a girlfriend who just wanted him to be
happy and in love and he just couldn't get his head 'round it. It
was just me trying to imagine what he would say to her. Things he
never actually said to her in the film but things he would have said
to her. (Record Collector, August 2002)
'Venus As A Boy'
I think I wrote it in my living room in Iceland and sang it
into my dictaphone. Later, by accident, we were going through sounds
and I found this broken bottle sound. It wasn't intentional but it
sounded great. It was one of the last songs recorded for Debut - the
album was ready to go. Sometimes the more unpredictable side of me
does several headstands and flicks-flacks once the album has been
delivered and the best song come out. It is about a specific person
but I've always been very protective. I've never told the press who
a song is about and I always make sure I tell the person themselves.
I've shown people lyrics and asked them to live with them for a
week, to make sure they would feel comfortable.
(Record Collector, August 2002)
being selfish
When I did "Debut" I thought, 'OK, I've pleased enough
people, I'm gonna get really selfish.' And I never sold as many
records as with "Debut". So, I don't know, it seems the more selfish
I am, the more generous I am. I m not going to pretend I know the
formula. I can only please myself. (Mixmag,
september 1997)
Debut and Post
I always knew it would be two albums and that's why I called
them Debut and Post. Before and after. Björk packs her bags and goes
to England and works with all these exciting people. I'm not saying
there are no more people to work with - there are tons of exciting
people - but maybe we don't have anything in common.
(Blah Blah Blah, dec 1996)
Debut being a success
"Debut" turned out to be the private party everyone wanted an
invitation to, and in the eight months after its release, almost
half a million copies have been sold worldwide. Much to Björk's
embarrassment. It's as if you started cooking at this
restaurant and everybody heard about it and started coming, she
says, shifting in her seat. But you'd still only learned how to fry
eggs. You're doing your best and everyone's happy, but it's not
exactly what you wanted to do with your life.
(The Face #62, november 1993)
Debut being a virgin
"Debut" was very much for me like a virgin trying to express
herself, I mean a virgin musically. And that's why I named it
"Debut". And people who knew I had been around for many years just
thought I was taking a piss or something. But for me it was very
much like the songs I had kept in darkness and locked in my little
diary, only to be seen by myself. The first time they were out on
there own and had to figure out how to survive their own way.
(ZTV, 1995)
Debut vs Post
Whereas 'Debut' was like the greatesthits of ten years,
'Post' was like the last two years. For me, all the songs on the
album are like saying, 'Listen, this is how I'm doing,' and that's
why I calle dthe record 'Post', because I always address my songs
back in my head to Iceland in a letter. Because it was such a big
jump for me to move away from all my relatives, all my friends,
everything I know. (Raw, 17-30 january 1996)
recording Debut
When I started doing these recordings, I
did it all on my own, and with all the people who
got involved, like the engineers, brass students
and Oliver Lake, I was like: 'Listen, there's no
budget yet, if you're interested, you have to be
interested for yourself and if it goes on record
you will get paid.' Oliver
was interested and he arranged it, sent it back.
I then got Derek Birkett (One Little Indian's chief)
on a good day and said: 'Listen Derek, I want to
do an album, but it's not going to be what you think
it's going to be, because I am in no mood to please
anyone, and it's not going to be your chanteuse,
easy-to-sell album.' Birkett, a former founder
member of anarchoagit punk band Flux Of Pink Indians,
remembers that "Björk had recorded some songs
in Los Angeles with Franny Gold, which I thought
were the most commercial things she'd ever written".
They were not to appear on the album, though. I
played him the three songs so far with saxophone
and voice. He liked it and said: `Fair enough, I'll
put money into it,' and had complete faith. It was
very surprising to me. I thought he'd want me to
do hit songs, go commercial.
"I did want
her to do that," Birkett confirms. "She
played me 'Violently Happy', which I hated, and
still do. I told her she could do whatever she wanted,
because that's the way I work, but I didn't think
the album would do as well as The Sugarcubes' first
album, which did a million [worldwide]. I was wrong.
It looks as if Debut will sell a million."(VOX,
december 1993) |
something to be proud of
When I did Debut, it was to do something that I could be
proud of. Something that I could play to my grandchildren and not
blush. If people like it that's just a bonus.
(QX Mag, december 1996)
the style of Debut
It's more like I'm inviting someone over to my own house,
where everything is just as I want it to be. And it's very private;
like I'm inviting just that one person to come into my bedroom and
showing him or her my things and the maybe cooking a little meal for
us. When I decided to do this album, I found that I had piles of
songs from way back. Björk had originally
intended to record the songs with a variety of producers.
I wanted to have all these different flavours. The most
important thing was going to be my songs, as opposed to what style
they were done in. (Rolling Stone, september
1993)
what Debut is about
This record is really about being tired of going into the
world's largest record store in the hopes to finding something
fabulous, and walking out with fucking yet another Miles Davis
record because there's nothing happening that's challenging.
So you felt that you had to make that music
yourself? Largely, yes. That was my impulse. I think pop
music has betrayed us. Everybody in the world needs pop music, just
like they need politics, their pay, and oxygen to breathe. The
problem is that too many people dismiss pop as crap because nobody
has had the courage to make pop that's releant to the modern world.
Pop music has become so stagnant. This is really a paradox because
it should change and evolve every day. I don't think anybody has
made a decent pop album in years. I want this album to be pop music
that everybody can listen to. I think not sticking to any particular
musical style makes the album real. Life isn't always the same. You
don't live in the same style from day to day, unexpected things
happen that are beyond your control. That's this record. One song is
about the mood you're in walking to the corner shop, another is
about being drunk and out of it on drugs in a club, and the next one
is about feeling romantic and making love. Pop is music for a
particular moment. You should be able to throw it away the next day
but it has be real for that one moment so that as you're doing the
dishes and hear it on the radio, you can relate to it, go deep into
it, and know that it matters and makes a difference for you. It
doesn't have to be some existential arty piece, it can just be a
song that everybody can sing along to. But it has to touch you
deeply for that moment. That's how I want people to experience this
record. As pop music for 1993. (i-D, may 1993)
what Debut is about
It's very hard to say just what it's about. I'd like it to be
a statement of individuality. But I've still got a long way to go,
so I'm a bit confused, because I just know I can do so much better
than this record... If you went out somewhere and had a really good
time, you don't wake up the next morning and try to figure out why
you did. It's not because of anything. It's just the atmosphere, the
people, the chemistry of friends, your mood, what happened before,
what will happen after. And you can't explain it, and I don't
understand why you should. And it's the same with songs.
(The Face #62, november 1993)
why it is called Debut
I don't really look at myself as a singer. I never intended
to be a singer, really. And that's why my new album is called Debut.
(Rolling Stone, september 1993)
why it took so long to do Debut
One of the reasons it took me all these years to make Debut
was because I thought it was so selfish and egoistic.
(Details, july 1994)
writing the songs
The tunes I wrote with Graham, I actually wrote before
"Debut", and I saved them for this. I met him in 1990; that was when
we were really sparking big time off each other, and for a few years
we sent each other tapes, and then when I started doing "Debut" with
Nellee it just became very obvious that it would end up as a very
musical affair between me and Nellee. So I talked to Graham and
decided to keep the other songs because they were just too
different. So I saved "Army of Me" and "Modern Things" for this
album, and then Howie has been one of my closest friends in England
for over three years and that just kind of happened one afternoon.
That song we wrote in an hour. (Dazed &
Confused, issue 16, january 1996 )
fame
I don't have to say this, but if I wanted to be famous I
would make completely different music. When I brought my demos of
Icelandic brass players doing The Anchor Song to my record company,
the boss said it was only going to sell a third of The Sugarcubes.
It sounds naff to say these things, but it's just a happy accident
that people liked it. Debut was meant to be very low-budget, it's
just kind of me being selfish really. (i-D,
#154, june 1996)
making Debut
"Debut" was all the songs I wrote during ten years in my
house on Iceland after my son had gone to bed. They were very
intimate, like little experiments. It was like a diary, something
that kept you sane rather than you'd want to tell the whole world
about it. (ZTV, 1995)
not having high expectations
When I made Debut , I kept saying to people, 'Please don't
get overexcited. I can do a lot better'. People thought I was being
like a pretentious uncle, but I wasn't at all, I really meant it.
(The Times, 1998)
promoting Debut
It was all right the first six months; seven months was a bit
tricky; eight months was when I started hitting people. I've been
telling this hideously pathetic, stupid joke that the Bible in
England is different. God created the world in one day and then he
talked about it for eight days. (The Face #62,
november 1993)
doing Debut
Doing "Debut" was like, Wooooah! Like a kid in a toystore.
It's like, 'I can have anything? Cool!'
(Mixmag, september 1997)
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