Saturday, May 30, 2015

Top 100 Songs From the 1990s (No. 47)

47. "Big Time Sensuality"
Artist: Bjork
Year: 1993

I had a great appreciation for the Sugarcubes, especially debut album 'Life's Too Good,' but I suppose Bjork's enormous leap as a solo artist made her previous band seem prepubscent by comparison. I believe this solo success can be easily traced to one tweak... no longer sharing vocal duties with the annoying Einar Örn. I kid! As I have said many times, I'm a pop fan at heart, and at some point her albums became too techno/house/trip hop (or whatever label you want to slap on it) for my delicate ears. If anyone could have made me a fan of those genres, however, Bjork was it. My respect for her many talents has never waned, and there is no doubt she is one of the most inventive vocalists of this or any period.

'Debut' and 'Post' are my go-to albums, and I considered several tracks from them for a spot on this countdown. At one point I went so far as to actually type "Human Behavior" at the top of this page. Ultimately, I went with "Big Time Sensuality" because, as you might have guessed, of those early singles, I think it's the closest thing to straight-ahead pop. If joy has a sound, this is it.

This is slightly off topic, but Bjork said something on Conan O'Brien's show back in 1993 that has always stuck with me. Conan asked her about the music scene in Iceland. I'm paraphrasing, but she explained that they are an isolated people that sneak in American radio when they can and take in what's going on in Europe too... and then they misunderstand it all in a most beautiful way. I love that.

4 comments:

Swiss Adam said...

This song is the one for me too.

Echorich said...

Further agreement here!

Scott said...

I kinda lost track of her after Debut but, as far as top pop tunes go, Big Time Sensuality is up there with the best. Haven't listened t Debut for a while but that will be remedied this evening.

Brian said...

Yes, Debut was the one for me too, boys, but I get why others stuck with her much longer.