[Miscellany]

Bjork is a little like the chocolate covered Turkish Delight candies in a Roses box of chocolates. With Turkish delight you either love them because you appreciate the contrast between the squishy rose scented TD and the chocolate or you leave them until the end and take a bite when desperate but end up spitting it out into the nearest bin instead. It took me a while to come round to the wonders of Turkish delight. I actually remember the moment it happened. I was having afternoon tea (proper afternoon tea with actual tea in tea pots and jazz music) with some girlfriends a few years ago and #2 brought out some Turkish delight. It was the real stuff, bought from some sort of middle eastern bakery on Sydney road and boy was it good. Sure, it's still not my favourite sweet and I don't usually seek them out, but when I come across a bit of Turkish delight I always savour it and wonder why I don't eat more of it. That's how I feel about Bjork. Every time I listen to her I wonder why I haven't been doing more listening to her.

Artist/Not-Nun Cousin had her album Debut first. The only other album she had before me was Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream (needs its own mm post). So, yes that's significant because usually I was the one that lead the way in..well everything. Not this time. Of course Bjork had been around forever with various bands and of course there's that exquisite song Birthday by her band The Sugar Cubes (look it up!) that is a favourite. But it wasn't really until Debut that the rest of the world took any notice of her.

Debut is probably my favourite of her albums and people challenge me on that all the time. Yes, okay she gained depth and complexity in her music as the years went on - but for me it's always been the relative simplicity (well, simple for bjork anyway) of Debut that I love. Maybe that makes me uncultured - so bite me. After I bought the album for myself I found something beautiful in every single song - and I think that's the thing about Bjork - she's chaotic and just a little different - sometimes her music can be jarring to the ear because it's not quite melodic enough, or you can't always sing along (almost impossible!) - but there's always something beautiful to find in between the layers of sound. I like beauty that isn't always always so obvious. I love finding beauty in amongst the chaos - it's part of the reason why I love Melbourne so much. Layers, Layers, Layers. I notice the unpolished silver bits.

Anyway, my favourite song on the album quickly became Venus as a Boy. It reminds me of like soft rain falling on the roof in the middle of the afternoon while you read a book on the sofa. That's probably a bit specific, but you're allowed your own interpretation :) There's been a bit of listing of attributes that girls want in the opposite sex in blogland recently. I've done it too. But I guess, bottom line - this song is the list, isn't it? It's pretty simple, really.

Labels: musical monday

posted by M at 1:22 am 17 comments