FEATURE:
In Salute of Post’s Lead Single
IN THIS PHOTO: Björk in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Jane Brown
Björk’s Army of Me at Thirty
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FOLLOWING Björk’s…
remarkable 1993 debut album, Debut, there was a lot of interest in her. Many knew her from The Sugarcubes. However, I think Björk is at her best when solo. Her second studio album arrived in June 1995. Many argue Post is her finest album. It definitely included many of her best songs. I think Army of Me is one of them. The lead single from the album was released on 24th April, 1995. The opening track from Post, it was written by Björk and Graham Massey. Lyrically, Army of Me is about the damaging behaviour of Björk's brother. She tells him to stand up to regain control of his life. It is quite a brave and original lyrical angle. A song that is dark and intense. The perfect way to open up her brilliant second album. I think it is inspired heavily by Trip-Hop artists like Tricky and especially Massive Attack. Björk wrote most of the album in London. Post is her impressions of life in the city. Or at least London inspired a lot of the sounds and sights. Army of Me’s lyrics are definitely personal. However, the composition seems to be very much influenced by British artists. Tricky (who was previously in Massive Attack) one of the producers on Post. I want to come to an interview from 1995 where Björk was asked about Army of Me. However, I want to first bring in some positive reviews for one of her most and most enduring singles:
In a positive review, Heather Phares of AllMusic stated that "'Army of Me' casts Björk against type as a warrior goddess fed up with whining, instead of her usual cyber-pixie persona...the song's pounding industrial beat, menacing synth bass, and unusually aggressive lyrics ('And if you complain once more / You'll meet an army of me') stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the album and to most of her previous work." Eric Handerson of Slant Magazine found that the song "provocatively merges a Weather Report-esque jazz-fusion bass riff with a heavy-timbered rock drumbeat to match her contemptuous vocal delivery ('Self-sufficience, please!')" Natalie Curtis described the song as "inelegant"; Mim Udovitch of Rolling Stone dubbed it "ominous, anthemic", with Lou Stathis of MTV calling it "booming, martial-march techno". According to Brantley Bardin of Details, 'Army of Me' is "the album’s straightest song, a manifesto about self-sufficiency",[20] while for Liz Hoggard of The Observer, the track is "brutal yet tender". Stuart Maconie of Q magazine praised the song by stating that its lyrics carries "bold and refreshing sentiments for a rock song. Refreshingly Icelandic sentiments", and further stating that "'Army Of Me' not only sounds fabulous—Led Zeppelin and techno welded together into a surging, operatic whole—but possesses a briskly pull-yourself-together tone. 'Stand up, you’ve got to manage ... /You're all right, there's nothing wrong / ... get to work / and if you complain once more, you'll meet an army of me”.
I will move on to a chat from Interview Magazine that was published in June 1995. It is interesting what Björk said about Army of Me. I don’t think enough has been written about the song. It is a classic. A brilliant video directed by Michel Gondry (who directed several of her videos). I will do an anniversary feature about Post closer to June:
“Do you have visual ideas in your mind when you’re writing your songs ?
Definitely. It’s natural for me to express things first musically, then visually, and third, with words. So the words are like a translation of noises and pictures.
“Army of Me” Is a heavy song. Did you have a picture in your mind when you wrote it ?
I’m a polar bear and I’m with five hundred polar bears, just tramping over a city. The lyric is about people who feel sorry for themselves all the time and don’t get their shit together. You come to a point with people like that where you’ve done everything you can do for them, and the only thing that’s going to sort them out is themselves. It’s time to get things done. I identify with polar bears. They’re very cuddly and cute and quite calm, but if they meet you they can be very strong. They come to Iceland very rarely, once every ten years, floating on icebergs.
Are you in character in a lot of your songs ?
Most of my songs are written in the first person, from the point of view of my best friends. I find it ten times easier to express my friends’ feelings than my own. If I write about myself, I usually write in the third person. It just feels natural.
Do you sing from your stomach or your chest ?
My stomach. Most engineers find it quite difficult to deal with me, because most of the singing I did as a kid was when I was walking outside, completely on my own. This is absolutely impossible in London. There is no privacy here. I started singing with the whole of my body, which is both good and bad. The engineers usually end up using the same kind of microphones as they put on a stand-up bass, because it’s got a big body”.
I am going to end up with a feature that investigates the video for Army of Me. I do hope that the song is played on radio on 24th April. Thirty years since the release of the first single from Björk’s second studio album. It is a stunning song that I never tire of hearing. One that has so much gravity and atmosphere:
“Bjork’s music video for her single Army of Me is strange and fantastical, and to me seemed very reminiscent of much of Tim Burton’s earlier works we saw at the Museum of Modern Art. The video starts with a slow pan in on Bjork lying in a glass tube, through the back of which we can see unidentifiable lights and shapes. This shot, along with the music behind it, sets the scene for the video as dark, out-of-this-world, and slightly confusing. The shot that starts at 13 seconds in is arguably my favorite in the video, and I see it as an exemplar showing of how framing, zooming out and an upward pan can be used in combination to quickly give the viewers a certain idea of what is happening, only to show them how misled they really were. At first it is just a faceless person in a plain car. Quickly, however, we see that we are actually in a scene involving a monstrous, unrealistic car and odd flying bugs the size of arms. The view of Bjork’s truck is our first real intuition on the costume and setting aspects of the mise-en-scene in the video. The car quite obviously looks fake: not just in its shape and bearing, but in that it seems to be made of Styrofoam. This follows for the rest of the video, emphasizing the idea that this is not supposed to be something we have seen before. Those familiar with Bjork’s music will understand how this idea is pertinent to her whole philosophy. She has done her best throughout her music career to never replicate anyone else, and beyond that to always do things no one else has even thought of. Again, I see a parallel to Tim Burton. As a director and film maker he is constantly changing things and doing things in ways no one else would have thought of, including writing a story about the king of Halloween town who wants to be Santa of all people, and changing the loving childrens movie Willy Wonka into a darker, creepier film”.
One of Björk’s greatest songs, the supreme Army of Me turns thirty on 24th April. Even if you have not heard the song for a while, it is a perfect chance to connect with it now. Noticing the musical shift from the singles released off of Debut. Björk embracing new genres and directions. One listen of Army of Me and you are…
DRAWN into its world.