Every Björk album ranked from worst to best
Since Björk entered the public consciousness as a member of the alternative rock band The Sugarcubes in the late 1980s, she has remained a solid fixture in the music world. After the band split in 1992, Björk released her first solo album, Debut, the following year, eventually becoming the bestselling Icelandic musician of all time.
During the 1990s, Björk’s music helped to reinvent the pop landscape. She mixed a vast amalgamation of genres into one, creating a sound that sounded distinctively her own. Simultaneously drawing from jazz, R&B, house, techno, electronica, trip-hop, rock, avant-garde, ambient and classical, Björk’s early releases – Debut, Post and Homogenic, cemented the musician as one of the most unforgettable of the decade.
As the next decade arrived, Björk dabbled in the world of acting, taking the leading role in Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark and providing a soundtrack album in accompaniment. She continued her stellar output with 2001’s Vespertine before releasing a Greatest Hits album as chosen by fans. But Björk’s career was far from over – the compilation merely highlighted the most incredible feats of the musician’s first decade as a star. In the twenty years that have followed, Björk has released six more albums, including Volta, Vulnicura and most recently, Fossora.
Björk’s influence on music cannot be understated. The musician paved the way for experimental pop artists such as SOPHIE, Charli XCX, FKA Twigs and Arca. Furthermore, artists who have been active before or rose to prominence at the same time as her, from Madonna to Radiohead to Elton John, have cited Björk as a significant influence and favourite.
From the bold Debut to the breathtaking Fossora, here are Björk’s ten studio albums ranked in order of greatness:
Every Björk album ranked from worst to best:
10. Medúlla (2004)
At number ten is Medúlla, Björk’s fifth studio album, released in 2004. The musician scrapped the carefully layered electronics present on her previous albums in favour of acapella instrumentation. Björk employs the help of Inuit throat singers, beatboxers and choir groups to create dynamic backing sounds to accompany her distinctive vocals.
Discussing the album, Björk said: “Everybody was going, ‘Oh she’s making a vocal album, it’ll be a horrible Yoko Ono experience’. But I wanted to show that a vocal album doesn’t have to be for the chosen few. It was just about working with the instrument I know best, my voice.” Although Medúlla showcases Björk’s ability to experiment with new and exciting ideas successfully, the album tires quickly compared to her other works.
9. Biophilia (2011)
Not only was Biophilia Björk’s seventh studio album, but it was also a multimedia project, becoming the world’s first “app album,” centring around musicology. Partly composed on an Apple iPad, the album’s sound reflects the technological themes surrounding its release, often including electronic beats. ‘Crystalline’ is a staggering electronic track, made in collaboration with dubstep duo 16bit, which culminates in a thunderous breakcore section. Björk also created new instruments for the album, including a ‘gameleste’, a mixture between a gamelan and a celesta, programmed to be played remotely on a tablet.
However, the album often resides in a mysterious and mellow soundscape, with the standout track ‘Cosmogony’ retaining a soft rhythm despite the sounds of distorted brass. Björk often matches the song’s musical structure to the natural phenomenon described in the lyrics. For example, ‘Thunderbolt’ contains arpeggios that reflect the time between the sound of thunder and the appearance of lightning. Biophilia is a fantastic album, but one that focuses too much on the superficial aspects of its creation.
8. Volta (2007)
When Volta was released in 2007, it became Björk’s first and only album to enter the US Billboard 200 Chart, peaking at number nine. Björk decided to move away from the highly personal and emotional themes present in her previous releases, stating: “All I wanted to do for this album was just to have fun and do something that was full-bodied and really up.” Volta saw Björk work with Timbaland and Danja for the first time, alongside familiar collaborator Mark Bell. The result was a mixture of experimental pop tracks that were instantly memorable, such as ‘Earth Intruders’ and ‘Declare Independence’.
The album feels like a mixture of all Björk’s LPs up until this point, with some tracks relying on mellow electronic instrumentation (she claimed ‘Wanderlust’ is a continuation of Post‘s ‘Hyperballad’) and others embodying the full, danceable energy of hits from Debut. Brass is used on almost every track, performed by an all-female Icelandic brass ensemble. Björk is at her most political on the astounding ‘Declare Independence’, a rallying cry of action that sees the musician shout, “Make your own flag” and “Protect your language.”
7. Utopia (2017)
Björk’s 2017 album Utopia was made in collaboration with Arca, a Venezuelan electronic producer. Discussing their time working together, the musician said: “I obviously saw a gigantic musician in [Arca], and I felt that she had gone into my world with such elegance and dignity and interpreted it, helped me [with] what was there, that I wanted to meet on a more equal basis.” Described as folktronica, the album blends avant-garde pop with folk and electronic instrumentation. Björk detailed that the album was inspired by her interpretation of utopia and paradise, a stark contrast to the painful divorce album, Vulnicura, she released two years before.
Flutes and choirs flutter between electronic beats and Björk’s idiosyncratic vocals, creating a dynamic and intense listening experience. The project’s ambitious nature, which clocks in at just over 70 minutes, makes it challenging to stomach at times. Far from commercially viable, the album works better as a whole concept than as individual tracks. Still, the soundscape created by Björk and Arca is magical and otherworldly, evoking images of forest fairies and mystical creatures.
6. Vulnicura (2015)
Following the devastating split from her husband, Matthew Barney, Björk channelled her heartbreak into an album, which resulted in 2015’s hauntingly sad Vulnicura. “The only way I could deal with [the divorce] was to start writing for strings; I decided to become a violin nerd and arrange everything for 15 strings and take a step further,” she stated. Some of the artist’s most gutwrenching songs appear on Vulnicura, such as ‘Black Lake’, which features searing strings and simple yet hard-hitting lyrics such as “Did I love you too much?/ Devotion bent me broken.”
The album marked Björk’s first collaboration with Arca, who joined the production at a later stage. Björk described it as “such a contrast, the most fun music-making I’ve ever had, with the most tragic subject matter. […] It’s the quickest I’ve ever worked. […] It’s one of those crazy things in life where people from opposite ends meet, and you’ve got so much to teach each other.”
5. Fossora (2022)
The most recent release from the Icelandic genius is Fossora, an album that she shared in September 2022. Coming five years after Utopia, Fossora was created during the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on themes of isolation, grief and new love. Björk described it as an “Iceland album” and how an interest in mushrooms “unified the record’s themes of survival, death, and ecological meditation”. Clarinets dominate the soundscapes; however, many tracks frequently showcase unforgettable electronic sections, such as ‘Fossora’ and ‘Trölla-Gabba’, with the latter feeling particularly apocalyptic.
Released almost 30 years after Debut, Fossora demonstrates that Björk is still just as experimental and innovative after all this time. Fossora feels warm and grounded, with Björk’s love for her home country bleeding through every track. The album has been nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys, making it her ninth consecutive nomination in the category.
4. Debut (1993)
The album that introduced the world to Björk the solo artist, Debut, instantly highlighted the musician as an indomitable force. Hits such as ‘Venus as a Boy’, ‘Big Time Sensuality’, ‘Human Behaviour’ and ‘Violently Happy’ all sit perfectly on Debut, blending an eclectic mix of sounds. The album weaves between lively vocal performances, pounding beats, delicate string instruments, and club-appropriate rhythms.
Björk’s ambitious approach to making pop hits is still just as innovative today, and slices of Debut echo through the works of artists from Grimes to Lady Gaga. Debut wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of English dance music; as Björk once recalled: “I remember going to Manchester, and 808 State taking me around, and me just seeing things that I’d never seen – that I’d hoped existed. So I would be up until early morning, sometimes from just the enthusiasm for the music.”
3. Homogenic (1997)
By 1997, Björk was a firmly established international superstar, and this was made no more apparent than when an obsessive fan, Ricardo Lopez, mailed the musician a letter bomb in 1996. Luckily, it was intercepted, but Lopez took his life on camera while playing one of Björk’s songs in the background. Although the incident deeply distressed her, Björk didn’t let it stop her from finishing her third album, Homogenic, which she completed in Spain, away from media attention.
The resulting album is one of her most accomplished works, moving away from the techno-inspired energy of previous releases, instead focusing on the meeting of electronics with classical instruments. Björk described this merging as reflecting her native Iceland, where “everything revolves around nature, 24 hours a day. […] Very elementary and uncontrollable. But on the other hand, Iceland is incredibly modern; everything is hi-tech”. Standout tracks include the journeying ‘Hunter’, pounding ‘Pluto’ and stunning string-laden ‘Bachelorette’.
2. Vespertine (2001)
Released in 2001, Vespertine is an icy, minimal album – deeply sensuous and revealing in its lyrical content. Björk decided to move away from the big beats and extravagant sounds of her previous releases; instead, she wanted to make “microcosmos of thirty or forty beats interacting.” Vespertine is defined by harps, music boxes, clavichords, strings, and the celesta, which give the album an ornate and romantic quality. ‘Pagan Poetry’ is undoubtedly a highlight, with Björk gracing us with one of her most powerful and unforgettable vocal performances.
From start to finish, Vespertine is a glorious and resonant masterpiece, proving that Björk can do mellow just as well as she can do harsh, bombastic beats. Other standout moments include ‘It’s Not Up To You’, which includes a beautiful choir background that interacts with harps and strings, and ‘An Echo, A Stain’, a glitching tension-laden piece rich with emotion. Björk described Vespertine as “about the universe inside every person. This time around, I wanted to make sure that the scenery of the songs is not like a mountain or a city or outside; it’s inside, so it’s very internal.”
1. Post (1995)
Björk’s groundbreaking album Post was recieved with critical acclaim upon its release in 1995. Instead of replicating what made Debut successful, the musician moved into greater experimental territory, blending even more sounds into her ever-evolving musical palette. The album begins with the industrial and demanding ‘Army of Me’ before moving straight into one of her most recognisable hits, ‘Hyperballad’. The influence of trip-hop becomes particularly apparent on ‘Possibly Maybe’, and ‘I Miss You’ sees Björk give an energetic and impressive vocal performance to the backing of house-influenced instrumentation.
Describing the album, she said: “It was very much also reflecting my life at the time. Kinda big city, big lights, Trafalgar Square kind of energy. I was going to a lot of clubs, I was meeting a lot of new friends that ended up being friends for life, actually. […] Suddenly, I was very extroverted, very extroverted friends, […] being over the top. But really enjoying it. But maybe also knowing that you didn’t want to do that forever. You know, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.”
