Product Description

With DEBUT, the Icelandic thrush Bjork Godmundsdottir (lateof the Sugarcubes) brings her knowing innocence and quirky voice to bear on an engaging program of renegade pop tunes. The unusual instrumental textures on songs such as "Human Behavior", fleshed out with timpani, small percussion instruments, vibraphones and harps, suggests a post-modern version of Phil Spector.
As a singer, Bjork's swooping octave leaps and guttural cries betray the elemental contradictions in her music. She projects the girlish innocence and barely constrained sensuality of a wise child, old beyond her years (the techno-reggae romanticism of "Venus As A Boy", the bouncyhouse changes of "Big Time Sensuality" and "Violently Happy"), and sometimes she sounds like she's trying to rediscoverhow such doe-eyed love might actually feel, as if for the first time (the mysterious groove of "One Day" and the jazzy standard "Like Someone In Love", with its spare harp accompaniment).
There's a pronounced techno feel to DEBUT, with its airy synthesizers and spacious, uncluttered mixes, but without the cool, mechanised detachment of that genre. On "Aeroplane" Bjork combines a saxophone quartet with Middle Eastern-flavoured percussion to steer her tale of obsessive lovejust outside of the pop mainstream, while the unusual saxophone harmonies of "The Anchor Song" lend a folkish colour toher extended metaphors on home and erotic immersion. It's precisely Bjork's sense of adventure that gives DEBUT such a cool exotic flavour.

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #767 in Music
• Released on: 1999-03-29
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks

Amazon.co.uk Review
Her first album following the break-up of the Sugarcubes, Debut is Icelandic trickster Björk's statement of purpose: bringing curious experimentalism to the dance floor and putting her startling, expressive voice front and centre. Her perspective is a little alien--it's no accident that the first song talks about "getting close to a human"--but her levelling of genre distinctions has some wonderful results, especially the eroticised easy-listening reggae sway of "Venus As a Boy". Paired with producer Nellee Hooper (of Soul II Soul), she comes up with a series of invitingly artificial settings for her pipes, built from late-night beats and peculiar timbres, and sings like she's overwhelmed with joy from all her senses. --Douglas Wolk

Customer Reviews

Should have listened alot sooner than this!
I have been a fan of Bjork for many years and regarded her as one of the most amazing and original singers in the whole music world. However my intake of her work has been very limited, i have listened to alot of the Sugarcubes and many individual tracks but it has taken me many years to take in a full LP. Well today i had house work to do and my girlfriend recommended that i give this one a listen and how pleased i was to do so. The opener 'Human Behaviour' was incredible and really set off my interest and in no time atall i was scrubbing away in joy at the incredible music i was hearing. Her voice is beyond description and each listen brings a new dimension. As the album progressed i was greeted with many delights that were both ecclectic and exhilirating. It went from House to Jazz to complete alternative lo-fi and then back to House again. With inbetween was her singing in a car park somewhere. You get the idea anyway it was alternative brilliance from start to end. Listen to this LP it will fill you with happiness and help with housework immensley. And before anyone looks at that as a critisism, i am a strange fish who just likes music whatever i do. Highlights included 'Human Behaviour', 'Venus as a Boy', There's More to Life Than This', 'One Day' and the amazing 'Play Dead'.
An absolute modern classic!!!

Mostly very good
I found this album to be very pleasant, although I didnt favour all the songs on it. Violently Happy, Crying, Human Behaviour, Venus as a Boy and Big Time Sensuality are great tracks indeed. I advise you to buy this album.

A true classic
A fascinating album which stamped Bjork's unique character, compositional, lyrical, and melodic sense all over it. The songs work very well as an entire album, with downtempo and faster numbers belnding in seemlessly. It has atmosphere in vast amounts and sounds as fresh and intruiging today as it did when first released. Bjork is a true original and this album is an absolute gem.