RAZ: Some Americans first heard of her in 1987. And my mom did complain about - that she couldn't take me to a bus when I was like, 3 years old to 4 years old because I would stand up on a chair and sing songs for everyone. RAZ: Bjork was already a star in Iceland at age 11, when she recorded a children's record in 1977.īJORK: I remember being in like, school buses when we would go on field trips or whatever, and I would be in the back like, and people would drive back, and people would be sleepy or whatever, and they will ask me to sing. RAZ: The first time Thom Yorke, the lead singer from Radiohead, heard this song - by the way, it's called "Unravel," and it's from her 1997 album "Homogenic" -the first time he heard it, Thom Yorke wept.īJORK: (Singing). It wouldn't sound out of place if you heard this.īJORK: (Singing) While you are away, my heart comes undone, slowly unravels in a ball of yarn, the devil collects it with a grin, our love in a ball of yarn, he'll never return it. For a brief moment, clear sunlight peeks over the horizon. RAZ: Imagine you're sitting in a large, wooden church in 17th century Iceland. ROSS: This is somehow a voice that comes in from the north, that crosses vast spaces, that does have something ancient, something very old in the grain of it. And he counts Bjork among the most gifted vocalists alive. I think you just hear one or two notes, and you know it's Bjork. ALEX ROSS (Music Critic, The New Yorker): I cannot think of another voice like it in pop music, in classical music. It just means there are fewer things - like in Iceland, you have the lava, you have almost no trees, almost no animals and almost no people, so things are very stripped down. It's a little like her music - challenging, sometimes, to hear, but there are always moments of beauty and transcendence in each song.īJORK: I feel there's something called like, northern or arctic sound, which is more stark. It's powerful and visceral, but she can't quite explain it. RAZ: Bjork's relationship to sound is abstract. It's how she thinks about where her voice fits into the sounds she hears - water, wind, thunder, breaking waves, volcanic eruptions. RAZ: Spatial as in space, as in the vast environment around her. I think for me, it's always been about spatialness. There is something celestial about it, as if it comes from another world, a fantastic and colorful and utopian world.īJORK: (Singing) Treading the glacier head, looking hard for moments of shine. And sometimes when I hear her voice, I wonder as well. RAZ: There are people - and I'm not making this up - who do not believe Bjork is a human - or at least 100 percent human.
You know, if someone is a real jerk, and that sort of. RAZ: Even though most English speakers say Bjork, it's not really Bjork.īJORK: Yeah.
The Icelandic singer best known as Bjork is the subject of this week's installment of NPR's ongoing series "50 Great Voices." But before we tell you why, some housekeeping.