How Roland Barthes inspired a Björk song

Credit: Press

Björk reveals her most played song of the past two decades

Thu 22 December 2022 10:16, UK

Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk revealed to fans the one song that she has been playing the most over the past 20 years in a new two-hour takeover on BBC Radio 6 Music.

Announcing the top tune as ‘Kijom Kijom’ by the Indonesian outfit Haba Haba Group, Björk said: “I’ve decided to play for you this song which is in my music library as the most played song of the last 20 years. It’s by a band called Haba Haba Group, who are from Sumatra, Indonesia. This song is called ‘Kijom Kijom'”.

Björk added: “It’s almost like an Indonesian RnB tune before RnB was invented, from the ’70s I think this is. I really love this tune, everything about it: it’s sassy, sensual, picks up the energy in the room. I just love it.”

Elsewhere in her session, Björk revealed that she still buys her music individually for playlists rather than streaming. “I usually have three or four playlists going on in my life,” she said. “I religiously always buy them and pay for them. I don’t download the music. I’m a bit old school like that. I want the musicians to get paid.”

Back in September, the singer released her new album Fossora, and earlier this month shared a dazzling video for ‘Sorrowful Soil’, one of the album’s non-single tracks. The setting for the video was the recently erupted Icelandic volcano Fagradalsfjall.

“‘Sorrowful Soil’ is a song I wrote from random improvisations,” Björk wrote in a press statement about the track, adding: “I kinda thought I was writing another song, but then when I edited it, I threw away most of the stuff and this is what stood there staring at me”.

“‘Sorrowful Soil’ was written as [my mother] started to get seriously ill, so it’s more sad,” Björk later added in an interview with NME. “‘Ancestress’ was written after she passed away, so it’s more like a celebration of her life. I like when you hear about Mexican and Irish people who want to celebrate someone’s life when they pass away.”

Watch the new music video and Björk’s most-played song below.