Reviews
Rolling Stone (10/16/97, pp.103-104) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...she leaves home and investigates love's bumpier back roads....celebrates difference and challenges listeners to explore the joys of contradiction with open ears and vivid imagination....one of the boldest--and most exciting--albums of the year." Spin - "[A]n eerily sustained work that ambitiously shares the methods and auras of contemporary design, film, and theater; and it represents progress on nobody's terms except Björk's admittedly fanciful own." Spin (1/98, p.86) - Ranked #4 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums Of The Year." Spin (10/97, p.135) - 9 (out of 10) - "...the 31-year-old Reykjavik native's new album delves deeply into hip-hop, flies in orchestras, and proves that the electronic generation will yield much more than a string of dance epiphanies..." Entertainment Weekly (9/26/97, pp.76-77) - "...may be Bjork's most audacious move in a career filled with them....On roughly half the album she and coproducer Mark Bell...take two seemingly incompatible genres--techno and classical--and weld them together. It's like sneaking a boom box into a chamber recital and seeing what happens..." - Rating: A Melody Maker (12/20-27/97, pp.66-67) - Ranked #33 on Melody Maker's list of 1997's "Albums Of The Year." Village Voice (2/24/98) - Ranked #9 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. NME (Magazine) (12/20-27/97, pp.78-79) - Ranked #15 in NME's 1997 Critic's Poll. NME (Magazine) (9/20/97, p.54) - 9 (out of 10) - "...her third solo album, HOMOGENIC, is probably her most weird, it is also her best....It is here...that Bjork has delivered her most emotional, highly-charged and groovy record, as well as a stinging triumph for the spirit of adventure." Pitchfork (Website) - "Lyrically, the record picks up themes she had already explored on her previous two albums -- loneliness; sexual desire; desperate, even defiant love; the feeling of being a fish out of water -- but her writing is more vivid than ever before."
Additional information
Personnel includes: Bjork (vocals, keyboards); Gavin Wright, Wilf Gibson, Peter Oxer, Roger Garland, Jim McLeod, Ben Cruft (violin); George Robertson, Peter Lale, Roger Chase, Bill Hawkes (viola); Martin Loveday, Helen Liebmann, Paul Kegg, John Tunnell (cello); Helen Tunstall (harp); Alasdair Malloy (harmonica); Yasuhiro Kobayashi (accordian); Jeff Bryant (horns); Mark Bell (keyboards, programming, drum programming); Guy Sigsworth (keyboards, clavichord, organ); Chris Laurence, Paul Pritchard (bass); Steve Henderson (timpani); Frank Ricotti (military snare); Trevor Morais (electronic drums); Markus Dravs (programming, drum programming); Richard Brown, Marius DeVries, Howie B. (programming); The Icelandic String Octet. Producers: Bjork, Mark Bell, Guy Sigsworth, Howie B. HOMOGENIC was nominated for a 1998 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance. "Bachelorette was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video. As one of modern music's most enigmatic and consistently entertaining personalities, Bjork has never shied away from the edge. Whether making straight ahead dance music, exploratory modern rock, or even show-tune-caliber drama, her vision has always remained innovative and original. Her voice jumps, in the space of a syllable, from a kitten-like purr to a banshee's howl, and is never anything less than captivating. HOMOGENIC, her latest musical endeavor, finds her plunging headlong into electronica, a form well-suited to her intense, offbeat phrasing and tone. From the skittering breakbeats and ghostly wails of the opening "Hunter" to the all-out electronic crash that is "Pluto," HOMOGENIC explores the melding of human and machine. The drama of "Bachlorette" finds a lush, rich string section following a tripping electronic beat, giving way to the Icelandic wonder's trademark wail. The juxtaposition of thoroughly modern sounds with conventional elements, such as symphonic arrangements, pipe organ, and accordion, form a central theme, to which HOMOGENIC's title undoubtedly refers. On HOMOGENIC, the traditional and the technological find their meeting point in Bjork's soaring, otherworldly voice.
