The books that have inspired Björk the most
A tenure as the lead singer of The Sugarcubes established Björk as a striking musical voice, paving an easy path for her to begin a solo career once the band dissolved in 1992. The singer soon burst onto the pop music scene with her first album, Debut, completely revolutionising the genre. Blending her distinctive vocal talents with a mixture of styles, simultaneously drawing from British club culture, classic jazz, contemporary ambient works and industrial rock, Debut is a heady concoction that flows seamlessly from track to track.
After the success of Debut, Björk released Post, an even more ambitious collection of tracks that merged mainstream pop sensibilities with bold experimentalism. With tracks such as ‘Army of Me’, ‘Hyperballad’, ‘Isobel’ and ‘I Miss You’, Björk proved her ability to write incredibly solid pop anthems that avoided cliche and predictability. From flourishing strings to icy trip-hop beats, the instrumentation that backs Björk’s astounding vocals is always hypnotising.
The singer rounded off the decade with Homogenic, yet another spellbinding display of artistry, taking significant inspiration from her home country of Iceland. Since then, Björk has released many other innovative records, such as Volta and Vulnicura. Yet, one of her greatest releases following her stellar trilogy of ‘90s work is Vespertine, her most erotically-charged album.
The album explores new love and the excitement of entering into a sexual relationship with a new partner, with these lyrical musings wrapped up in the very personal experience of being intimate with another. With tracks like ‘Pagan Poetry’, she finds herself conflicted between commitment and freedom, convincing herself that “she loves him, she loves him” over and over.
The themes of the album resonate strongly with the work of Anais Nin, the erotic short story writer and diarist who documented both real and fictional accounts of sex, infidelity, affairs and even incest throughout her career. Thus, it is unsurprising that Björk cites the writer’s diaries as one of her favourite works of literature, frequently returning to them.
Elsewhere, Björk has highlighted Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet as one of her favourite novels. Published in 1974, the novel is a surrealist masterwork written by a seminal feminist thinker. Carrington was a painter as well as a writer known for her beautifully bizarre paintings that added a well-needed feminine perspective to an otherwise male-dominated movement.
The Hearing Trumpet follows a 92-year-old woman who is institutionalised before turning to the occult. For Björk, the book remains a potent influence. She told The Guardian, “This book is so inspiring! You English should be proud of her. The book seems destined to be a movie.” A cinematic adaptation featuring music by the singer is something we’d love to see.
