Wednesday, December 03, 2008

750. Björk - Debut (1993)

















Track Listing

1. Human Behaviour
2. Crying
3. Venus as a Boy
4. There's More to Life Than This
5. Like Someone in Love
6. Big Time Sensuality
7. One Day
8. Aeroplane
9. Come to Me
10. Violently Happy
11. The Anchor Song
12. Play Dead


Review

On paper this album shouldn't really work, or at least it should be really dated, electronic pop from Iceland? But then it does work and it is still one of the best Bjork albums, although my favourite isn't even on this list. I don't understand, why leave
Homogenic out?


Bjork is a lover or hate her kind of musician, I am very much on the previous camp. She is up there in my mind with Radiohead as the mainstream acceptance artists who never seem to compromise their artistic standards and the rest of the world just has to adapt to what they do.

Debut is a perfect case of that, it is a highly eclectic mix of very original electronica, from the Eastern sounds of
Venus as a Boy to the taping it in bathrooms of There Is More To Life Than This. This is all complemented by beautiful haunting tracks like The Anchor Song, Aeroplane, Come To Me and the bonus track Play Dead, or the plain beautiful ballad of only voice and harp of Like Someone In Love. Amazing album.

Track Highlights

1. Play Dead
2. Like Someone In Love
3. Anchor Song
4. Venus As A Boy

Final Grade


10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Debut topped Billboard's Top Heatseekers albums chart and peaked at number 61 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. It peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart.

In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Debut the 74th greatest album of all time. The album has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. It has also sold 921,000 copies in U.S. according to SoundScan.

The album was re-released in 2006 as a DualDisc including new DTS 96/24 5.1-channel surround sound mixes. The DualDisc also formed part of the (____surrounded): box set.

In 2002, Q Magazine named "Debut" the 5th Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.

Anchor Song at MTV Unplugged:



2 comments:

Airik said...

Personally, I'd give this album an 8 because Homogenic is so much better.

Francisco Silva said...

It is, but this one is also pretty amazing. Homogenic is not even on this list! That's one of the biggest failings of this list.