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
I'm just like anybody. I have my ups and downs.
In elections in Iceland, I have always been an abstainer. It seems like politics is such a small bundle of self-important people, who don't have much to do with things I'm interested in.
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.
When I was a punk teenager, I rebelled because lots of people in Iceland think that foreigners are evil and that if you don't wear woolen hats and eat sheep, you're betraying your heritage.
The English eat all sorts of birds - pigeons, ducks, sparrows - but if you tell them you eat puffin, you might as well come from Mars.
In Reykjavik, Iceland, where I was born, you are in the middle of nature surrounded by mountains and ocean. But you are still in a capital in Europe. So I have never understood why I have to choose between nature or urban.
My first album didn't come out until I was 27, which in pop years is late, you know. But when it came time to arrange it, I became a kid in a toy shop. I had a harp and a saxophone quartet and a symphony orchestra. I went berserk for a time.
With a small town mentality, you make a decision very early on as to whether you are going to do everything by the book or just go your own way and not care.
Nature hasn't gone anywhere. It is all around us, all the planets, galaxies and so on. We are nothing in comparison.
A lot of the time I get obsessed by little nerdy things in my corner that no one else is interested in. I have that nerd factor in my character.
I miss you, but I haven't met you yet!
I have written most of my melodies walking and I feel it is definitely one of the most helpful ways of sewing all of the different things in your life together and seeing the whole picture.
As a singer-songwriter, what I do is write about how the human feels.
I feel like the people from Iceland have a different relationship with their country than other places. Most Icelandic people are really proud to be from there, and we don't have embarrassments like World War II where we were cruel to other people.