Bjork
Bjork
Björk Guðmundsdóttir, known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Over her three-decade career, she has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on a wide range of influences and genres spanning electronic, pop, experimental, trip hop, dance, classical, and avant-garde styles. She initially became known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Sugarcubes, whose 1987 single "Birthday" was a hit on US and UK indie stations and a favorite among music critics. Björk embarked on a...
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth21 November 1965
CityReykjavik, Iceland
Nature has always been important to me. It has always been in my music.
When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth.
Living in a capital in Europe but still surrounded by mountains and ocean, my relationship to music was strongest walking to school and back. I would sing to myself and very quickly started mapping out my melodies to landscapes - at the time I just thought it was very matter of fact, a common thing to do.
I went to music school, and I guess I was a difficult, know-it-all type of student.
In '96, I was in a very specific place with my own music - I was only listening to beats. You would come to my house, and I would just play beats all day.
Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There's a lot of music, always.
I find it so amazing when people tell me that electronic music has no soul. You can't blame the computer. If there's no soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there.
The funeral business is so manipulative emotionally. I would want to be thrown into the sea or burned - something that's not a big hassle.
Most people in Iceland are blonde and blue-eyed. I was nicknamed 'China girl' in school 'cos they thought I looked Asian.
Since I was a kid, I always wanted to figure out how to make a bass line that was a pendulum - like, gravity would control it, and then you could make it play different notes.
In order to actually have a touchscreen in front of me and somehow still be connected to nature, I needed to be able to incorporate natural elements into the song structures. Because that's always been my song-writing accompaniment: nature.
There is such a big chunk of me that is David Attenborough. I think he is my biggest inspiration.
I think religion is a mistake - I'm exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.
Come on, I'm from Iceland; I don't do hip-hop.