Thirty years ago this month, Bjork’s Debut struck our jaded grey planet like a kaleidoscopic meteor, shattering the concrete edifices of the musical mainstream and shrouding us all in symphonic clouds of post-acid house glitter.
Forget desert island discs, Bjork’s Debut is my Voyager space probe disc, the one and only album I would choose to send out into deep space to represent our species.
Because that way, if aliens ever do find it, we’ll have been as upfront and honest with them as possible, since everything they need to know about us is right there in the first track.
And what a track it is, the perfect opening salvo to an album that not only defined an era, it helped shape an entire generation by serving as a rallying cry for oddballs everywhere – myself included.
Three decades later it still sounds as fresh, artistically compelling, and playfully berserk as ever.
There’s Definitely, Definitely No Logic…
No longer content with fronting the Sugarcubes, Debut was, first and foremost, a statement of intent and something of a creative exorcism for the artist.
Eccentric, eclectic and effortlessly innovative, Debut saw Bjork making a clean break with her punk past, while at the same time every sound, every lyric, every yowling vocal crescendo still bristles with punky attitude.
Debut is raw and gritty yet tender, often introspective, yet infused with the sweaty energy of the early 90s dance scene. The polished production and songwriting ensured its radio friendliness, yet even in 2023, the album remains uncompromisingly weird.
Many of the songs on Debut, including Human Behaviour, date back to Bjork’s teenage years, lending the album a sense of raw honesty and unrestrained imagination rarely found in pop music.
The result is a lyrical reverie that swings back and forth from childish nonsense to teenage impishness and lovestruck naiveite, best epitomized by the clanky head-nodding whimsy of the UK top-40 single Venus As A Boy.
That video, incidentally, was my very first introduction to Bjork. I was immediately smitten.
What started as teenage crush soon turned to swooning infatuation. I vividly recall listened to Debut in full for the first time late at night, headphones on.
Her dizzying cover of Like Someone In Love, with its delicate vocal flourishes and angelic harp accompaniment, convinced me she was the muse Euterpe in human form.
Bjork Debut – Production & Tracks
Debut was released in July 1993 on One Little Indian records, the indie label which had already a number of Sugarcubes releases on the roster, as well as indie-dance crossover acts like Eskimos and Egypt, and The Shamen.
Bjork shared production duties on the album with Nellee Hooper, the Bristol native and Wild Bunch alumni who had previously worked with Massive Attack, Soul II Soul and Sinéad O’Connor.
By this point Bjork was a decorated club veteran. She’d also been in the studio with 808 State, learning some studio tricks along the way. Debut was now the perfect opportunity to use that experience and put her unique stamp on house music.
The first dance track, Crying, is the first such example, making use of subtle percussion and rising layered harmonies on the chorus over a steady 4/4 house beat.
Nestled between Human Behaviour and Venus As A Boy, it helps to further set the tone for the album, which has notable changes in tone and tempo throughout.
After Venus As A Boy, we get our second house track, the unbridled handbag-swinging hedonism of There’s More To Life Than This.
Recorded live, with club revellers whooping in the background, it features Bjork running into the nightclub toilets, while still singing into the microphone, before reemerging for the chorus.
Quite a ballsy thing to do in the middle of a gig, never mind on a debut album, but then if you’re trying to convey the true club experience, then quickly nipping in and out of the toilets is as authentic as it gets.
It inspired me to do something similar in my career, actually. During my last office job I would often run into the bathroom for extended periods chanting the same chorus over and over to myself while barricading myself in the cubicle.
There’s more to life than this! There’s more to life than this!
After this high point Bjork downshifts again with the aforementioned Someone In Love, before blasting back with Big Time Sensuality, a stripped-down deep house shimmy, complete with obligatory cheesy 90s organ chords. (I’d call them old skool organ chords but they’re as ubiquitous in house music as ever.)
This is then followed by a trio of downtempo numbers, adding more flavours to the pot.
One Day is a slow, dreamlike track full of swirling synths and soothing pads. Aeroplane is song about long-distance longing that sounds like she’s trekking through a tropical jungle with a New Orleans jazz band in tow.
Come To Me is a heart-wrenching siren song that’s drenched with emotion and swirling ambience. Once the chorus kicks in and those sublime strings start to play, you’re ready to jump overboard, swim ashore and surrender totally.
The final club track, Violently Happy, is the ultimate bipolar banger, pure, loved-up manic energy, musically, lyrically and spiritually and it can still tear up a dancefloor to this day.
Anchor Song, technically speaking, is the final track of the album, a quirky, free-flowing number consisting of saxophones and vocals. The fairytale lyrics sees Bjork swimming to the bottom of the sea before dropping her anchor there to stay. “This is my home.”
The exact meaning of it all is open to interpretation, the ideal way to end this perfectly enigmatic album.
But of course, it’s not really the end, is it? Not if you bought the CD version back in the day. Cuz it couldn’t be a true 90s classic album without the obligatory “hidden track” now would it?
Bjork’s final surprise for us turned out to be the best track on the album. It’s also one of my favourite pieces of music of all time.
The track was originally recorded for the soundtrack of a long-forgotten Harvey Keitel movie and wasn’t intended to be on the album at all. But we’re all so glad it was, even though the theme of the song jars with the more optimistic theme of the other songs.
It was co-written with post-punk and dub legend Jah Wobble and features orchestral arrangements from David Arnold, who would later go on to score movies like Stargate, Independence Day and three James Bond movies. Yet, in my opinion, none of those could ever hope to match the epic scale of his collaboration with Bjork.
It Stops The Hurting
Play Dead is one of only a handful of songs that gives me goosebumps every single time I hear it.
Its subdued introduction, with a soft fluttering synth arpeggio, lulls you into a false sense of security before launching into a full-on orchestral assault on the senses.
The tempo is strident, the emotion is unrestrained and once Bjork’s soaring vocals take full flight the effect is like having raw adrenaline pumped straight into your heart.
Funny how a song about playing dead can make me feel so alive and yet I think it’s a song I’d like to die to. In fitting Icelandic fashion just give me a proper Viking burial. Strap me to the boat, crank this song up full, light it up and push me out to sea while the flames ascend and Bjork’s volant tones flood the heavens.
What, too much? Well I did say at the beginning I was a bit of a weirdo.
Which is precisely why, 30 years on, human behaviour is more puzzling to me than ever.
Except these days I don’t really give much of a shit anymore because, with Bjork’s assistance, I’ve long since learned that there’s more to life than this.