Nov 202012
Here’s the latest Bjork video:
Hey, I was really into Bjork’s first few albums and continue to think that the later Vespertine is beautiful. But her work after 2001 has become weirder and weirder. I blame it on Matthew Barney, her paramour since about that time. I’m often willing to give odd visual artists a high-five or just a pass, but Matthew Barney’s work is just plain pretentious. (The dude is best known for his art film series, The Cremaster Cycle. Naming many, many hours of film after a muscle that controls testicular contractions just about says it all.)
Please, someone help me find something good to say about Bjork’s increasingly non-Human Behavior.
I kept waiting for the Hamburgler and Mayor McCheese to show up.
There’s only so much one can do with the finite amount of notes we use in pop music, but Bjork’s quirks have become so predictable it’s like she’s got less notes available to her than the rest of us. That was terrible. She could have recorded herself throwing up and come up with something more interesting.
Man, that sucks. But at least she found something constructive to do with her dryer lint.
Not much good to say about the music part. I was glad the visuals were interesting enough to get me up to where the rhythm kicks in (about 2:30). Not too much different than a later, slower Radiohead track.
About Matthew Barney. I saw his full Cremaster Cycle exhibition at the Guggenheim a few years back. Pretentious as hell, but worthwhile in that out Aunt and her boyfriend – can’t faze ’em Manhattanites to the core – walked out shaking their heads in dismay over the state of modern art.
There was a big Matthew Barney exhibit here a few years ago and Mr. Royale and I went. I left feeling very underwhelmed. I like some of his stuff, especially the Drawing Restraint work, and appreciate the conceptualization. The exhibit also showed parts of the Cremaster Cycle; I must say that seeing people look and act like satyrs was interesting for about 5-10 minutes. But then what? Hard to top goat people.
I would disagree about the later Radiohead, though. I would say their music has become somewhat easier to access over time and less apt to change tempos and meters mid-song.
Mr. Royale said something almost identical. And at least the magma muppets gave us something to look at because the music was so inspiring.
You really summed it up. I think it’s sad that so much contemporary pop music (she says she’s avant garde, but let’s just call it pop) is based solely upon sonics – sound, assemblages, beats, on top of which melodies, “hooks” and raps are grafted. I think this is a cart before the horse approach. I find her melodic sense to be very limited and repetitive and her lyrics usually contain at least one major clunker per song. Having said that, I do think she has done some really cool things – and probably will again. And I actually liked the video, I thought it was visually compelling.
Shh, shh, it’s oh, sooo bad, shh, shh…