Bjork

Björk, whose stepfather had been in an Icelandic rock band, recorded her first album at age 11, and later joined Theyr, a legendary Icelandic hard-rock band whose drummer was Siggi Baldursson.

Einar Örn Benediktsson launched Gramm Records, and with Bragi Ólafsson formed punk band Purrkur Pillnikk, whose debut EP reached Iceland’s Top 20 in 1981.

In 1989 Björk’s ex-husband Thór (with whom she had a son, Sindri) married new keyboardist Magga Ornolfsdottir, while Ólaffson and Örn also were wed (the first openly gay marriage in rock history).

Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week! (#70, 1989), with fussier arrangements featuring strings and horns, was panned by critics. Björk and Baldursson then worked on Gling Glo, a Bad Taste album of jazzed-up ’50s Icelandic pop songs.

The Sugarcubes played for French President François Mitterrand during a 1991 summit meeting in Reykjavík, before recording Stick Around for Joy (#95, 1992).

A year later Björk ventured outside the Sugarcubes to record her first U.S. solo album, Debut (#61, 1993), with producer/composer Nellee Hooper of British soul/jazz collective Soul II Soul.

It yielded the single “Human Behavior,” which reached #2 on the Modern Rock chart. Björk’s next solo album, Post (#32, 1995), featured a pair of tracks cowritten and produced by trip-hop artist Tricky, with whom she had a brief affair.

She was later briefly engaged to drum-and-bass star Goldie. Björk made headlines in 1996 when she attacked a reporter in the Bangkok airport for trying to ambush her and her young son with a live TV interview. Later that year, an obsessed fan tried to send her a letter bomb (which was intercepted), as well as a videotape of his own suicide.

Bjork formed another band called ‘KUKL’, a gothic rock band, with Einar Orn Benediktsson, Einar Melax, Guolaugur Ottarsson, Sigtryggur Baldursson and Birgir Mogensen.

The band toured Iceland and UK and came up with ‘The Eye’ and ‘Holidays in Europe’. In 1995, Bjork’s second studio album ‘Post’ was released, produced by Nellee Hooper, Tricky, Graham Massey and Howie B. the album was much more mellow than her first album and it had deeper jazz sounds and orchestral arrangements.

In 2004, ‘Medulla’ was released that featured the work from artist like: Tagaq, Rahzel, Dokaka, Mike Patton, Robert Wyatt and several other choirs, alongside Bjork’s singing. It was her career’s highest charting album in the US.

The album, which was also released on CD, arrived in October 2011. Bastards, a collection of Biophilia remixes, were released in Europe in late 2012 and in the U.S. in early 2013.

Around that time, Björk launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund translating the Biophilia app for Android and Windows 8 platforms. In 2014, Björk contributed vocals to Death Grips’ album Niggas on the Moon.

She also continued the Biophilia project with a live concert film, Biophilia Live. Filmed at London’s Alexandra Palace and featuring spectacular visuals, it was released theatrically and as DVD and Blu-ray sets that also included the live audio on CD.

Late that year, it was announced that producers Arca and the Haxan Cloak collaborated on her upcoming album.

Vulnicura, which traced the aftermath of Björk’s relationship with Matthew Barney and harked back to the sounds of Vespertine and Homogenic, arrived in January 2015 after it was leaked ahead of its scheduled March release date.