Did ‘Homogenic’ give us Björk’s best music videos?
If there’s one artist who has created an idiosyncratic world that is utterly unable to be replicated, it’s Björk.
The best musicians are the ones who actually experiment with their strangest ideas instead of keeping them at the back of their minds, and the Icelandic artist is no exception. She truly lives in a musical universe unlike any other.
It’s only natural, then, that Björk has employed filmmakers on a similar wavelength to craft a visual world as unique as her songs, resulting in some of the most bizarre music videos in music history. Who doesn’t want to watch Björk kiss and dance with a suit-wearing cat which grows human-sized? What about a video where real images of the singer having sex are obscured with digital effects?
Each Björk album has given us some terrific visual moments, but which album is responsible for the greatest moments in her videography? I’d argue it’s Homogenic, which was released almost 30 years ago alongside some iconic pieces of visual art, one of which even resides in the MoMA.
Homogenic came as Björk’s third album, taking inspiration from the coexistence of nature and technology (especially evident in ‘Hunter’) as well as the ever-evolving complexity of relationships. There’s an iciness to some of these tracks, not in an emotionally cold way, quite the opposite in fact, and the beats pierce straight into the heart of the listener, where the influence of the Icelandic climate becomes abundantly clear. Trip-hop-inspired beats skip over lush orchestration while the singer’s voice is as vibrant as ever, moving between pounding cuts like ‘Pluto’ and shimmering moments of pure bliss, like ‘All Is Full of Love’.
It’s this track that gave her a seminal music video worthy of art gallery status, directed by Chris Cunningham. In a white environment, we see the musician’s face imposed onto a robot, and she kisses another robot in a moment that feels simultaneously erotic and sterile. The machinations of love are placed on full display, and it’s as unsettling as it is hauntingly beautiful. Arguably, Björk’s finest music video ‘All Is Full of Love’ still feels ahead of its time, and with every watch, you can’t help feeling utterly compelled.
The album also saw her collaborate with legendary fashion designer Alexander McQueen on the video for ‘Alarm Call’, which sees the singer getting up close with a bunch of animals, like snakes, as she floats on a raft through the jungle. In one scene, her mouth opens wide and she bares huge teeth like a piranha, and it’s this unpredictability, paired with the knowledge that the one-and-only McQueen was behind the lens, which makes it another solid Björk video.
Paul White was responsible for one Homogenic video, ‘Hunter’, which is fantastic because it really shows how little Björk cares about being perceived as odd. I mean, who else would have themselves appear completely bald, only to start morphing into a digital polar bear before shaking out of it. It’s an insane concept, but against the plain white background, you really feel the influence of her native country: the cold climate, the push and pull between the natural world and technology.
The other two Homogenic videos were courtesy of Michel Gondry, better known for directing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A regular collaborator of Björk’s, the pair just seem to understand each other’s penchant for the surreal, and with Gondry, she has created some of her most narrative-driven videos.
‘Bachelorette’, one of the artist’s greatest songs, is accompanied by a terrific video in which Björk finds a book in the garden, and its contents start to come true, with the singer turning into a sensation, starring in a musical about her success. Moving between gritty black-and-white and an Old Hollywood-esque use of Technicolor, it’s the star’s most cinematic video, although it results in her being trapped by vines and plants which tear the book away from her.
Then there’s ‘Joga’, which dials in on Björk’s preoccupation with Iceland once again, using CGI to show expansive landscapes before an animated version of the singer appears and the camera delves into her chest, where a Chris Marker-esque island is found. You never know what you’re going to get when you watch a Björk video, and here, we get a rare example of a video that doesn’t actually feature the singer all that much. That’s how important these landscapes are to her, though. They represent her.
Don’t get me wrong, she has released many incredible music videos during her career, from the Umbrellas of Cherbourg-inspired ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ to the bizarre gorilla dentist world of ‘Army of Me’, but every Homogenic video just fits into the sonic atmosphere of the album perfectly. It must be hard to create visual worlds that line up so well with such uniquely crafted music, but Björk found herself in safe hands with the help of Cunningham, White, McQueen, and Gondry.
