Björk: The Other White Meat

By Jon Yankovich

Björk's debut album Debut combines almost tribal rhythms with Björk's own singing style; two forms that don't meld smoothly but make for interesting, perhaps even beautiful listening. Björk continues to combine her banshee-like vocals with her trademark näive lyrics describing things most people take for granted to form an adorable image of herself in her listener's minds.

Debut has more of a dance beat than her past works with The Sugarcubes. Björk was responsible for the keyboard work on her album, which is easily noted by the simplicity in melody and Björklike instrument patches you'd expect from her. It is indeed difficult to describe the style, for nothing we know even approximates it.

The debut single and first track on the album, "Human Behaviour," is perhaps one of the best examples of Björk's lovely vocals in combination with rolling percussion indicative of running through a jungle. Her individual beauty and exoticness is maintained, and further pushes us to wonder what this person is really like.

As much as I've stressed Björk and her special style, there is much diversity to be found on this album. For most, the diversity pushes the songs too far from what we know as good for us to relate with it.

Overall, Björk has done a good, but not great job with her solo career. The album describes what we know of her very well, which may explain why it's not going to hit the top of the charts – Björk is too weird. For Sugarcubes fans, I recommend Debut highly. Overall, however, I will give Björk's Debut three chaos symbols.