1965 Björk Guðmundsdóttir
was born in 1965, November 21st.
1970 Björk attends, at the age of five, to the local music school Barnamúsíkskóli
Reykjavíkur - a school she would be dedicating her next ten years to, and
besides singing, learning to play the piano and the flute.
1977 Björk has appeared on national radio singing "I Love To Love", which
lead her to a record deal and Björk, releases her very first solo album
titled “Björk”! The album went platinum and she was offered the chance to
do a second album. With the money she earned she bought herself a piano
and started composing new songs of her own.
1980 Björk graduated from music school at the age of 15, being the only
student to have followed through all the 10 years of education.
1982 and then there was Tappi Tíkarrass! Releasing 2 albums and appearing
in a couple of films, most famous the Icelandic documentary "Rokk Í Reykjavík"
with 2 songs, Björk also became the cover girl of the video.
1983 Tappi Tíkarrass has just about explored every possibility of the band
and disbanded. They were Einar Örn and Einar Melax from Purrkurr Pillnikk,
Gulli Óttarson, Siggi Baldursson and Birgir Morgensen from Þeyr and Björk.
After writing songs and rehearsing for two weeks they performed under the
name KUKL, which means 'sorcery' or 'witchcraft' in medieval Icelandic.
1984 KUKL releases two albums, first 'The Eye'. It's called "Um Úrnat frá
Björk" and it was released in about 100 copies, all hand colored by Björk
herself! The title means "About Úrnat by Björk", with Úrnat being a papu-ish
word for holiday, or the likes of that.
1985 Björk discovered she was pregnant. That was no hinder for KUKL though.
Björk carried on as usual, and being 7 months pregnant, playing live on
the television with her big and healthy stomach sticking out.
1986 KUKL ultimately became very intense, so they decided to just break
the band up. Björk carried on recording some music with Gulli though, under
the name The Elgar Sisters, the name taken after a classical British composer.
They recorded 11 songs for an album, but they were put on hold to await
the next major development for Björk. A few of the songs were released under
Björk's solo career; Glóra, Siðasta Ég and Stigðu Mig.
At the age of 19, Björk gave birth to a child; a boy to be named Sindri,
on June 8 of 1986. Soon after, Björk got her first acting role in the Brothers
Grim based movie "The Juniper Tree", a black & white English-speaking movie
about two sisters who possess witchcraft.
Later on, Bad Taste developed a pop group consisting of Björk, Siggi Baldursson,
Einar Örn and Einar Melax from KUKL, with Þór Eldon, Bragi Ólafsson and
Purrkurr Pillnikk's old guitarist Fridrik Erlingson. And then there was
The Sugarcubes. Their official gig was rewarded with some studio time, and
so they recorded their first hit, 'Ammæli' (Birthday). They released an
English version on the British new label One Little Indian in 1987.
1988 The Sugarcubes got popular soon and signed onto the American scene
via the Warner imprint 'Elektra' and after a few singles they released their
debut album. The title was conceived when a broke poet friend in Iceland
exclaimed, when given a cup of coffee and a cigarette; 'Life's Too Good!"
After a while the Sugarcubes once again switched keyboardist, this time
to ?ór's girlfriend Magga Örnolfsdóttir - "stolen" from the band Reptile.
1989 The Sugarcubes had now become really famous, and decided to make the
next album as unpredictable as possible. Finally, the first single 'Regina'
was presented to the world. After a Monster tour, they released their second
album with the title "Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!" - a quote inspired
of Mr. Toad of Kenneth Grahame's famous children's book 'The Wind In The
Willows'...
This was not like 'Life's Too Good' at all, which was what they aimed at
- but the critics weren't as convinced of the glory of this album, so they
came down pretty hard on it. The album sold poorly, but the live shows were
always fully seated.
1990
The next few years, Bad Taste was running a bit slow, but when Björk got
the question from a couple of old friends and jazz musicians to sing for
them live when they were gonna be on the radio. Björk had been itching to
do this since 1987, when she had sung some jazzy gibberish with the trio
on one occasion, so she leaped on it and Bad Taste was keen on releasing
it on an album aswell. The old friends were Gudmundur Steingrimsson (aka
'Papa Jazz') and his Tríó Gudmundur Ingólfssonar, and together with Björk
they did a totally spontaneous album; 2 days, all live - no double takes.
The songs were old Icelandic tunes made famous by old Icelandic singers
and a couple of standards such as 'Oh Mein Papa' (in Icelandic), 'Ruby Baby'
and 'Can't Help Loving That Man Of Mine'
Gling-Gló instantly sold platinum. There were a few live tapes, since they
played some gigs in Iceland, but after Gudmundur died of cancer in 1992
Björk said, "No way. Never Again."
Björk planned to form a speed metal band called Scud and a duet with Sinead
O´Connor but wound up singing for Current 93, Bless and two tracks for Sódóma
Reykjavík, Óskar Jónassons first movie. The songs were the local fifties
standard 'O Borg Min Borg' with the KK Band and a techno track called 'Takk'
with DJ ?órhallur.
Later on she met a British guy who was the first musician Björk knew who
liked to improvise music on computers - something that thrilled Björk, who
now was a bit bored with the drum-bass-guitars setup of the Sugarcubes.
The band the British guy was in was 808 State.
1991
Björk also demoed two of her own songs for 808 State member Graham Massey
in 1990 - Aeroplane and the Anchor Song, and she met up with them in the
studio in Manchester. After taking a walkabout with her headphones full
of 808 State she returned with two new tracks; 'Ooops' and 'Qmart'.
After a while she also met jazz harpist Corky Hale, a tough old lady who
could stroke the harp moving Björk to tears. They wanted to do something
together, but Björks own music didn't quite bridge the generation-gap between
them so they settled on Björk's favourite, Chet Baker's old songs, like
'Like Someone In Love', 'My Funny Valentine' and 'I Fall In Love Too Easily'
and such - with only the songs 'Like Someone In Love' and 'I Remember You'
being properly released by Björk later on.
1992
After two singles released in 1990 and 1991, the third Sugarcubes album
was also released! It was the most happy-poppy collection of songs! The
title of this album was 'Stick Around For Joy'.
Needless to say, the critics were as ecstatic as can be expected of this
sort of purest form of pop. Even Einar made sense to them now, even though
he STILL was just Einar and always had been!
Later the same year they also put out a cd called 'It's-It!' with remixes
of some songs from their previous albums, with mixes by the likes of Justin
Robertson, Tony Humphries and Graham Massey, but someone said that that
was probably more of a marketing plot than a Sugarcubes thing.
The Sugarcubes once again started touring, but this was to be their very
last tour together, now supporting U2. Their very final gig was to take
place November 17 in New York at the Limelight club. At the very end of
the show, Einar is said to have shouted to the audience; "Thank you! We
were the Sugarcubes!"...
1993
Björk had some demo tapes ready for Derek Birkett, and made it clear from
the start that she only did this to please herself, so she wouldn't commercialize
it. Dom introduced Björk to Nellee Hooper, who would turn out to help Björk
produce her album. Original intent was that each track would have a different
producer, though, but they hit it off real good. Their relationship birthed
'Big Time Sensuality', but the first single to hit the humans was 'Human
Behaviour' - a meditation on humanity's oddness, portrayed on the big screen
by French animator Michel Gondry - having a giant teddybear avenge on the
human race and deliciously chomping up Björk in the end.
She abandoned 'Björk's Affairs' for the more statement-making title 'Debut'
- to celebrate that it was her first self-made album with her own songs
and without any compromises.
1994
Doing a live video, loads of live gigs and interviews, an Unplugged session
for MTV and even modeling clothes for Gaultier (as later also seen in the
movie 'Pret-A-Porter'!) - Debut was a major hit! Björk started working on
her next album. Having split with Sednaoui, Björk wrote a song about it,
called 'Possibly Maybe', a journey through the seven stages of a relationship,
from the first crush to the crushing break-up. Never being single since
16, Björk was a bit scared, but soon got into another working relationship
gone intimate as she met Adrian Thaws, also known as 'Tricky'.
The working relationship produced, after an escapade to Icelands nature
an hot springs, two songs - 'Enjoy' and 'Headphones'. Time came to record
her next mission, and together with Nellee, Marius de Vries and Howie B
she headed for Bahamas. She had to record half the record outside the UK,
in order to register her newly formed company Björk Overseas Ltd., having
changed the name from "Bapsi" Ltd (which was said to have been Björk's childhood
nickname) - but Björk didn't mind at all - she took the chance to record
it outdoors, on the beach at midnight and in bat-filled caves!
1995
The new album was supposed to be released when they got home from their
exotic journey, but in the last minute Björk panicked about the album being
too soft and electronic so she re-recorded it, adding trumpets, saxophones,
harpsichords, a symphony orchestra and a brass band - changing the form
of 'Cover Me' and 'I Miss You' and got in touch with a man named Eumir Deodato
to score the strings for the tracks 'Isobel', 'Hyper-Ballad' and 'You've
Been Flirting Again'.
Björk called her new album 'Post' because the songs were like letters from
London home to Iceland.
Touring on, Björk once got a nasty flu and lost her voice, but regained
it only to discover she had lost 3 octaves of her singing range and she
was diagnosed with throat nodules, but it really was a question of pushing
yourself over the limits of what your body can handle - which led her on
her monk tip - not even talking for a while, which was a thrill in itself!
Having finished a fleeting romance with Tricky, Björk was now seen with
Jungle DJ Goldie and later shyly revealed a relationship that, according
to Björk, was 'the best thing yet'.
1996
Björk, being fond of extremes, also took part of the forty minute piece
'Pierrot Lunaire' by Shönberg with conductor Kent Negano and the Opera orchestra
of Lyon. It's a talking-singing performance which required three months
of rehearsals. This appearance was never officially released and all recording
devices were strictly banned from the building, but someone in the audience
managed to sneak in a tape recorder...
Later on, Björk finally got to tour Asia - and she brought Sindri along.
On the stage in Hong Kong, she was surprised on stage by Goldie, presenting
her with the 1996 BRIT award for 'best international female artist'.
Later on that tour she got another, not so pleasant surprise. Björk headed
from Hong Kong to Thailand. Arriving on the airport, all her requests of
being left alone were completely ignored and she was drowned in a flood
of reporters and camera crews, including one of cable station IBC's show
'Fast Forward' - who claimed they had been promised an interview. Trying
to get away, Björk grimaced and turned her head down while pushing Sindri
on a luggage trolley, all while 'Fast Forward's reporter Julie Kaufman beamed
"Welcome to Bangkok!" towards Sindri when Björk, without warning, jumped
her, dragged her to the floor and thumped her head against the concrete
floor about 5 times - the security guards seemed helpless but managed to
drag off Björk (who almost escaped for a rematch!) who entered the bus where
Sindri was waiting.
Later on, Björk apologized, and Julie decided not to sue her but reported
to feeling sorry for her for having so much anger inside.
Björk released an album of remixes from Post, called 'Telegram', an adventurous
mixture of different sounds - from vocoded rage in Possibly Maybe to a fluttering
and beautiful string Hyper-Ballad by the Brodsky Quartet and a minimalist
thundery techno mix of Headphones by Finnish DJ Mika Vainio.
Speaking of exploding - while Björk was in Miami, a 24-year old crazed Björk
fanatic was so upset about her relationship with a black man that he manically
filmed himself while creating an acid mailbomb in a hollowed- out book and
mailing it to Björk's home in London, then shaving his head, painting his
body and to the sound of 'I Remember You' playing in the background, blowing
his head off with a pistol.
Spookily enough the fan, named Ricardo Lopez, lived mere blocks away from
where Björk was in Miami during that time! The police found his body in
his apartment which was a shrine to Björk, plastered with pictures of her
on the walls - and they managed to get ahold of the
package before it had reached Björk to "send her to hell" like Ricardo intended,
as he said on the tape - and prevented the death or horrible defiguration
of either Björk or her precious child!
Of course Björk was horribly upset by this whole incident, feeling both
threatened and guilty, and she even sent Ricardos parents flowers as a condoleance
for the loss of their son. She thinks that there had to be much more things
wrong in his life than just reacting to her dating a black man (whom she
ironically enough just had broken up with).
1997
The process of recording the songs was filmed and first shown in 1998 on
BBC under the name 'The Southbank Show : Björk Special', and also later
on Bravo channel as 'Bravo : Björk Special'; a huge hit amongst Björk fans;
an unique peek into Björk's studio and history as told by herself!
During Björk's second year of performing at the Tibetan freedom festival
arranged by the Beastie Boys, Björk took the chance to premiere a bunch
of songs that were to be on the album to come. She proudly presented them
as "Techno Prayer", "State of Emergency", "Hunter" and "Pluto".
In September 1997 Björk released her third album, entitled by the style
of the songs with a word she didn't even knew existed for real: Homogenic.
1999
Back in Iceland, taking some time off, but still in business! Björk of
