The Joni Mitchell albums Björk was obsessed with as a teenager
With a sound so futuristic and distinctive, it’s difficult to believe that Björk has taken influence from the work of any artist who preceded her. Really, the singer’s eclectic electronic output is a culmination of her musical interests, which range from jazz to gothic rock.
Björk began releasing solo music at just 11 years old before spending her teens bouncing between genres and bands. Around the same time, she discovered her love for Joni Mitchell. Though the folk legend’s soft songwriting may seem worlds away from Björk’s experimentalism, the Icelandic singer was captivated by two of her albums in particular.
Rather than admiring the more commercial classics – Blue or Court and Spark, for example – Björk, ever the contrarian, was enamoured by Mitchell’s slightly lesser-known work. “Obviously, I really love Joni Mitchell,” she recalled to Pitchfork. “I think it was that accidental thing in Iceland, where the wrong albums arrive to shore because I was obsessed with Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Hejira as a teenager”.
It’s no surprise that Björk was more interested in Mitchell’s era of genre experimentation, as both records saw her pushing into the jazz world. Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter was particularly unique, comprising improvisation and collaboration with jazz greats like Jaco Pastorius and Wayne Shorter. By her mid-teens, Björk knew the record by heart.
Björk also found that the records were some of Mitchell’s most individualistic and personal, paving the way for women in music. She enthused: “I hear much more of her in those albums. She almost made her own type of music style with those, it’s more a woman’s world.”
Prompted to comment on the feminism contained in Hejira, Björk gushed, “Right? The lyrics!” before further sharing her love for the album’s predecessor, The Hissing of Summer Lawns. “I love ‘The Jungle Line’,” she specified, “It sounds like something somebody would make now; it’s crazy.”
Though the ‘Army of Me’ singer adored her more experimental endeavours, she was less enthusiastic about the folk songs Mitchell has been revered for. “Maybe it’s because it’s not my generation, but when I hear the folk stuff that she did before that, I hear it as a lot of people and not just her. It’s a zeitgeist,” she concluded.
While many would argue that Mitchell’s folk output was equally unique and innovative, it’s understandable that Björk identified more with her less conventional works. Her obsession with Mitchell also demonstrates how wide-spanning her legacy is, transcending the sphere she operated within. From genre experimentation to carving out a woman’s world in music, her influence can be found in Björk and in every generation of female songwriters since.
