Where is the tune?
steve x

Ok so Ive finally heard Medulla and here is my track by track review. Ive only heard it twice so opinions may change obviously and I cant go into huge details because Im not familiar enough with it yet.

1. The Pleasure Is All Mine

I heard this once on the radio rip, and it didnt impress me, but the quality wasnt fantastic so I didnt listen again, I just waited for the album to judge it properly. It still doesnt impress me. The backing singers(or whatever you can call them) sound tuneless and annoying. The lyrics are simple and uniteresting and I was glad when it finished because it was getting on my nerves. A really disappointing opener.
2/10


2. Show Me Forgiveness

Very pleasant total acappella tune. Its good but its not exactly mind blowing
6/10


3. Where Is The Line

Now this is more like it, hard beats, a strong vocal, much more interesting. I hadnt heard any of the tracks performed live from this album , so they are all 100% new to me. And this instantly stands out as an incredibly strong track. Enjoyed this one a lot .
9/10

4. Vokuro

Bored me. Not very interesting. Maybe thats a bit harsh but after playing this album twice I dont really remember this at all, so it certainly isnt a stand out.
4/10

5.Oll Birtan

OK but again forgettable and just an interlude with no substance. I kept expecting it to end and then the same vocal would start over again. Another song that started to annoy me by the end, I just wanted it to be over.
2/10

6. Who Is It

Another very strong song, not quite as good as where is the line, but still sounds really very good. Not too over the top and some great effects.
8/10

7. Submarine

Oh my god. This has got to be one of the worst things I have ever heard. I skipped it after halfway on the second listen because I couldnt cope anymore. Bjork sounds OK but the guy on it drowns her, is totally out of tune and I think I cringed about 50 times listening to this. Im sorry to sound so negative but this was hideous!!!!!
0/10

8. Desired Constellation

This is really good, Ive heard a lot of people rave about this, and whilst it was pleasant on first listen I think I was still reeling and praying that there would be no more tracks like Submarine. On second listen I enjoyed it a lot more, Bjork sounds much more emotional on this than on other tracks.
8/10

9. Oceania

The Olympic song , so has a bit of a bias because Ive been able to hear it a few times. It sounds better on CD as it fits in with the rest of the tracks. It took me a good few listens to love this, but its really good now which gives hope for some of the others I havent connected with.
9/10

10. Sonnets/Unrealities XI

I like this, its interesting and I like the choir, they make this sound more emotional. Bit short tho, I wish some of these acapella/choir songs were longer with more depth.
7/10

11. Ancestors

Ummm....i like the piano intro. Then the annoying voice kicks in , then it just all goes horribly wrong and out of tune. Then all the voices go a bit mad and theres lots of gasping. Then the bloke starts grunting. What a horrible mess. My ears started to hurt and I longed to press skip.
Then when the final male voice comes in and starts screeching I was praying for it to be over soon. Is this song going to be used in torture chambers?
1/10 (only because I liked the first 30 seconds)

12. Mouth's Cradle

I like the sound of this but I had to turn the sound down a bit, because I found the backing a bit OTT and annoying. But it sounds like a great tune, spoilt by some stupid and irritating effects. I think I might be a bit biased against it because Ive listened to the album twice through and by this point Ive had to sit through some horrible moments and am looking forward to the end. Maybe I will try playing this on its own later.
5/10

13. Midvikudags

Good vocal at first, but I dont like these little interludes where Bjork is just saying the same thing over and over. There is a distinct lack of lyrics on this album which is disappointing.
4/10

14. Triumph Of A Heart

Well this is totally different to anything on the album, much more beat heavy. I really like this, I feel like all the vocal effects really pull together and create an exciting and interesting track. Totally different to the remix that we heard initially (thank god!) This is probably the most instantly accessible track for old fans of Bjork and does sound vaguely reminiscent of the beats on Homogenic and Post. I wasnt looking for or expecting old Bjork sounds but after sitting through this album I was a little grateful to be reminded of the old stuff. However if I was a casual fan I would probably never hear this as I wouldnt have made it to the end of the album. The only problem with this track is that it seems to cut short at the end very suddenly and the album just finishes as if someone accidentally knocked it off.
7/10

If I had never heard a Bjork album before I can honestly say I would not become a fan through this record. I did my best to keep an open mind and not have unrealistic expectations of this album. I know she's not trying to appeal to the masses, she's doing what she wants, which is great, and the whole vocal effects album concept sounded amazing, and in parts it really was. But it wasnt just that this record isnt my kind of thing or didnt click with me. It wasnt that I just found it boring or uninspiring. I actually found it annoying, cringeworthy and painful (my ears are literally hurting from some of it and I didnt play it particularly loud).

Tracks like Show Me Forgiveness and Vokuro I will go back to as they probably need more time, but other tracks like Submarine and Ancestors I really dont know that I ever want to hear again. I expected to have to give this album time but not to be repelled completely by it, which is really disappointing.

Overall score 72/140 = 51 %

That score works out about right because there is about half the album that either is already good or sounds like it has potential, while other tracks were a long way off the mark.

Despite all this, I have loved all of Bjork's first five albums and Im not going to give up on two listens. So I'll play it for the next week and come back to this review to see whats changed. I just wanted to record my initial thoughts.

Submarine is the weirdest thing ever. As I've told friends about the CD, that song is what I refer to when I say "there are moments I just stop and think REALLY? Bjork, You REALLY thought this song should be released for the world to hear."

The male vocal just wears on my nerves, I can't deal with it at all.


As for Ancestors, I started skipping it cos it's creepy and i thought it would give me nightmares. So there's a chance it may grow on me eventually- but I'm not counting on it.

so like, i can say i'm not feelin' this album and i won't be, like, ran out of the non-prince forum?

i wonder if i'll be singing a different tune in a couple of months?

Anxiety said:

there are moments I really like. But, they are seperated by big gaps of indifference and ocassional dislike.


Course it took me months to fully fall into Homogenic (my favorite) and Vespertine (my 2nd fave)...so who knows where my opinion will finally land.

Feel free to post your opinion here. Its up to the individual to decide if they like it or not. As long as were not going against the majority opinion on the latest Prince release then feel free to share your own!

See, I can TOTALLY understand this kind of review from a pop-music listener perspective, but seriously, that's not what Bjork is REALLY about these days. You need a real appreciation of music in the realm of 20th Century Classical to understand the kind of art she is producing these days. This kind of music is not for the easy-listening crowd, but it isn't snobbery to say this music is more advanced than the music of something like Post either, because simply, it IS more complex and yes, ADVANCED. This music will make you think better, because you have to use your brain in a different way to appreciate its ART.

I say, keep listening, take a break, find a good setting and listen to it as a work of modern day classical, because that's what it is. Along with Vespertine and perhaps Homogenic and some songs from other albums of hers, Medulla is truly a work to be taken SERIOUSLY. This is not "Big Time Sensuality" or "Human Behaviour", but it is, if you can believe it, an even deeper, more human experience than even those songs.

to Bjork - a true 21st Century Original!

mrdespues said:

ok, sure, and i can appreciate that. more and more i put bjork in the same box as folks like laurie anderson, yoko ono, john cage and philip glass...she seems to be more of a modern composer and performance artist and less of a conventional pop artist. yeah. i get that.

still, it's difficult listening. on that level where i know what i like and i know what leaves me cold, i'm just not diggin' on the album (yet). ask me two months from now, i'm sure i'll be freaking out over it. that's how it usually works with bjork's stuff. there are some beautiful moments on the album, like endo said, but overall it's not something i'm really thrilled to be listening to again.

mrdespues said:

This is total right-brained music! It's stimulating some weird shit in me right now. It's so primal and tribal. Her voice is such an incredible thing and to hear it almost surround you because of all the frequencies being used is very soothing, exciting, comforting, warm feeling right now. And the reason this would be deeper and more human than anything else she has ever done, is because she is using something deeper and more human than instruments made of wood and strings: The human voice.

I would have liked to hear other animal vocies as well. In the documentary I just watched there were some ducks or geese (large birds) stretching their necks up as if to reach the sound coming from the recording studio. I had a sense they wanted to join in and I thought that would have been so cool.

Damn, I'm listening to the cd right now for the first time. This sounds like Gregorian Chant. Track 10. Oh no... Ancestors is next!!!


Hold me.

Bjork keeps pushing her boundaries, in the process she looses some fans, it's funny how many people couldn't keep up with her this time round! u need a leap of faith to get her sometimes.

WHAT?!?!? This is such a beautiful piece! I honestly cannot fathom his opinion.

Kewl posts, people.

With every album, she just takes that step up into experimentalism, to challenge you just a bit more. This is her hardest album to get into ever. She also seems to tease the listener with a couple of absolute gold potential singles (Oceania, Who Is It, Triumph of a Heart, Where Is The Line) amongst several tracks of hardcore experimentalism. Submarine is the first Bjork song I have had to turn off, finding it completely unlistenable, but it's growing on me. I was not disappointed with Medulla though. I paid full price for this, $AU29.99, on the first day. I usually never do that, but with Bjork ya gotta make an exception.

Oh and y'all gotta admit -- Yoko Ono influenced this album. All those vocal noises -- in fact, "Ancestors" sounds a lot like Ono's "Kurushi".

gooeythehamster said:

Agreed. I'm loving the extemes in these posts. One man's Mozart is another man's Ashante'. I still haven't heard the album. Now I'm really looking forward to it.

it's interesting that i'm wanting to like the "difficult" pieces rather than the ones that try to anchor themselves down in some kind of pop/dance sensibility...the "poppier" songs on this album (in the relative spectrum, anyway) kinda leave me cold as something that i'd bop around or even sing along to, whereas i kinda like all the stuff going on in the less linear tracks (yes, even "ancestors") but i gotta say i'm suffering from a big case of "early bjork album listening syndrome" where my ears just aren't tuned up to appreciate what they're hearing. i was this way with vespertine at first, and it took a while to really embrace it (it helps to listen to it during winter, i find)...and i REALLY didn't like homogenic at first, but i came around like gangbusters with that one.

i'll say this, though - while i'm sure he's an amazing vocalist and i know he's made a career from having an unusual vocal style, i'm not getting into the mike patton contributions AT ALL. he just sounds like, erm...MIKE PATTON. maybe this is one of the things i'll get into and come to appreciate, because i really didn't mind his stuff with john zorn and naked city, but i can't help but think that his voice clashes with bjork's whole schtick on this album.

I know nothing of Bjork other than Big Time Sensuality, that was my cut.

She lost me after that...



I have no idea what he stuff sounds like other than weird and i want 2 know more

Kill me for saying this but Bjork needs another "Bachelorette". Pure brilliance. "Medulla" is possibly the most difficult thing I've heard this year. Part of this may be due to the fact that I just purchased "The Tripping Point" by The Roots and it's pretty much been in heavy rotation since Saturday. It's my first Roots purchase and I hear it's a more commerical departure for them so...
"Medulla" will need further listens but I'm afraid it's just a little TOO hard left for me and I like weird things ("Twin Peaks" anyone?). I instantly fell in love with "Vespertine" but I doubt this album will have that impact. I know we'll probably never get another "Bachelorette" from Bjork but from listening to "Medulla" it's sorely missed.

this cd is an instant favorite for me. i guess i hear what everyone is saying but i just don't understand it. there doesn't seem to be anything "difficult" to enjoy on this cd. up until this point, homogenic has been my favorite release of hers but this recording is just beyond amazing. i kind of expected it to be a great artistic achievement but not a terribly enjoyable listen...damn, was i wrong.

every single song takes me just a little further...i'm sitting here astonished that this came off so coherently! the climactic finish of triumph of a heart...phew, i was not ready for it! oceania and who is it are two stand out tracks as well as ancestors...that is some kind of sick communication! i won't try to spell...or pronounce...the icelandic tracks, i will will merely listen to them over and over and over again! desired constellation is one of the most beautiful tracks i've heard in a long time as is show me forgiveness. sometimes a record comes around just when you needed it and other times a recording lets you know that it is needed.

i'm just amazed at the accomplishment of this work. i can honestly say (for the very first time, by the way) that i've never heard anything like this before. simple genius!

.
[Edited 9/1/04 13:22pm]

sallysassalot said:

I'm with ya.

This album sure is getting people talking. And that's always a good thing.

endorphin74 said:

I couldn't agree more. It was a nice idea and maybe if she'd simply worked a few songs of this kind into an album I may have been more impressed. But as it is, it's a bit too much and leaves me wondering what she's trying to prove. Props to her for continuing to favour art over commerce (which is exactly how it should be) but this one leaves me cold. There's only three tracks that I'm really fond of: Who Is It, Oceania & Sonnets/Unrealities XI. Maybe some of the others will grow on me but I'm not very hopeful this time around.

I'm not really digging it.... I was the one expecting to think it would be great, whereas my boyfriend was really nervous about it. But he loves it, and it just doesn't really do anything for me.


This may change, but I'm not sure. It's the difference between hearing it and not necessarily liking it, but being intrigued and finding something in it that makes me WANT to get into it, and just hearing it and not really caring all that much. Bowie and Prince albums have often come down in the former category, and now I love most of them. But this Bjork album, at this point, I'm afraid to say, falls in the latter category.

And it's not that I'm not open-minded about it, or that it's too challenging, or that I'm just "not getting it." I wanted to. I was excited about it. I thought it sounded like it could be interesting. But I'm just not feeling it. In fact, if anyone else I like had put this album out, I'd probably be saying, "That's it. It's over. (S)he's lost his/her mind. I'm done with this." But since it's Bjork, there's a certain amount of leeway I'm willing to give it, but it just doesn't interest me.

Oh, sure, I think it's an interesting concept, it's impressive sonically, and I admire her for it. I think where it falls short is in the songs themselves. There are 4 tracks that I really like a lot (Oceania, Who Is It, Triumph Of A Heart, and Desired Constellation), but the rest of it just doesn't seem like songs to me. And that's fine, if that's what she wants to put out. On all of her albums, there have been what my boyfriend calls "intermission" tracks... that are musical, even lyrical, but act as interludes rather than as songs in their own right. (You've Been Flirting Again and Frosti spring to mind immediately), but to me, this sounds like a whole bunch of those, with very few fully formed songs. Lyrically/musically half-baked, getting by on just how weird the concept of the all-vocals gimmick is. The four tracks I like are the only ones I think sound and feel like full-fledged songs, with enough meat on their bones and enough ideas to carry them out to the ends of the tracks. The rest of them just sound like interludes... and if I want an album of interludes and half-baked songs with about 4 gems to hang the rest of it on.... well, I'd just listen to DamitaJo


Perhaps in time, I'll grow to appreciate it more, even love it. But it's just not the sort of album that I feel like I'm ever going to be in the mood to sit down and listen to, let alone get into. At first, I was sad about that. But the more I think about it, there's nothing riding on it. It doesn't change how I feel about her past work, or put me off for future releases. At this point, though, this album just isn't for me.
[Edited 9/3/04 12:32pm]

This is exactly what happend with me. I still love Bjork and I think she's great, but I went into the album with too great of expectations.

Tessa said:

Tessa said:

All this after what, one listen???

MrSquiggle said:

Totally agree with everything you're saying. That's interesting that you say this is a Ono influenced album. I'm a fan of hers as well, but I didn't think about that when I listened to Medulla. The experimentalism though is definitely there. They're both people who I think take music to be truely works of "art"... something that the category of pop kinda reduces, in order to be easily commodifiable and circulatable.

CynicKill said:

hey... don't go dissing Twin Peaks!!! Its one of the best tv shows of all time, not to mention one of my favorite movies! I still find time at least once a year to pull out "Fire Walk With Me" just to see that little midget guy speak backwards and David Bowie's brief flipping-out cameo...

and speaking of the Roots, I really like that she had Rahzel contribute to the album. Its very different for her genre of music (whatever that may be). I heard a few years ago a track he did for Erika Badu "Southern Girl" which is still one of my favorites of hers.

lezama said:

He wasn't dissing "Twin Peaks". Read it again. He was saying it's a weird show. Weird in a good way - unique.

mrdespues said:

Not snobbery at all. On the whole, Bjork doesn't capture my imagination and illuminate my soul and mind with her profound musings, or make me intimately familiar with the deepest of human experiences. But that's probably due to the fact that I'm just not as ADVANCED as you.

music is just like food. some of it you love and some of it you can't take. if it doesn't sound good to you it just doesn't whether you understand it's background or root of the toon, or even if you respect the lyrics and the artist. does anybody remember stevie wonder's "secret life of plants"?

GangstaFam said:

I had one ear on it the second time. My other ear was, admittedly, busy...

sallysassalot said:

it makes me wanna cry. It's probably my second fav.....next to "Mouth's Cradle" and "Where is the Line" that man on your profile page is so sexy....I'm in love too.

add-on edit
[Edited 9/5/04 19:49pm]