Customer Reviews

Debut

5 star:		(112)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bjork has refined her sound and evolved as an artist, inspiring others since her first album, released in '93, but 'Debut' is a treasure that's just as priceless and definitely worth having in one's collection. She impressed and showed much potential here, suggesting more to offer in the future, and is one of few that manages to outshine the previous endeavor with the next. She blew many electronic fans away with her refreshingly innovative style and wacky video ideas, staking her claim as a force not to be reckoned with.

On latter albums such as 'Homogenic' and 'Vespertine', the songs were deeper and ultimately darker but most of the material here is playful dance tunes. The music, however, is creatively unique with Bjork's vocal prowess and groovy atmospherics. She became a household name with club hits like "Big Time Sensuality" and "Violently Happy" but, for me, the true highlights include the emotionally-charged "Venus As a Boy" - a striking melody with hypnotic beats and lush strings that have a slight Middle Eastern feel, and the beautifully crafted "Come To Me", which may just be my all-time favorite Bjork song with its delicate, melodic rhythms and gentle yet achy cooing.

I first became aware of Bjork Gudmundsottir when she was fronting the Sugarcubes, a new-wave dance-pop band out of Iceland. I was sufficiently intrigued by this to pay closer attention, if only because I'd never heard of an Icelandic new-wave dance-pop band before. I liked the Sugarcubes, though not overmuch; I felt they were not unlike a lot of what I was hearing on the radio at the time. When I heard that Bjork had split from the band and was now pursuing a solo career, I assumed she would release a couple of decent albums of forgettable dance-pop, then fade into obscurity.
Serves me right for making assumptions. The album she released, the appropriately-titled Debut, turned out to be one of the best albums released in 1993, a strong, energetic collection of songs, full of emotional colors and shadings, showing off Bjork's vocal, lyrical, and musical versatility to powerful advantage. It began an impressive solo career that continues to this day, and shows no signs of slowing down. This is one of the albums that showed me there's more to music than straight-ahead four-to-the-floor rock and roll, and it's one of the few albums from that era that I still listen to regularly. The reasons are songs like the following:
* The eerie, haunting "Human Behavior," with its alien's point of view lyrics and shifting percussion sounds, which has the nerve to let tympani hold and carry the bass line - nervier still was that this was the album's first single;
* "Crying," a powerfully sung, more traditional tune - if a song that veers from electronica to techno to synthpop, juxtaposing programmed beats with "organic" ones, can be called "traditional";
* "Venus As a Boy," which juxtaposes erotic lyrics with sweet orchestrations, violins and chiming keyboards underscoring the sensuality/carnality of lyrics like "he's exploring/the taste of her/arousal/so accurate..." - sung with such clarity and purity that one barely connects the lyric with its meaning;
* Bjork loves to juxtapose; how else to explain placing side-by-side the punchy, techno-pop "There's More to Life Than This" with the old standard, "Like Someone in Love"? Here we see how truly daring Bjork can be; to go from the pulsing electronic beats and thumping bass of "Life" to the minimalist vocal and harp in "Like Someone in Love" is something lesser artists wouldn't dare try. Bjork handles it like it's nothing out of the ordinary, then goes on to the bumping, grinding, growling bounce of "Big Time Sensuality."
More wonders follow: the trancelike "One Day" and "Aeroplane"; the sultry envelopment of the bass-driven "Come to Me"; "Violently Happy," a scarifying song about being so in love, it leads the singer to "stand by the ocean/make it roar at me/and I roar back," and later to "daring people/to jump off roofs with me/only you/can calm me down..." Now that's love!
If there's one flaw here, it's "The Anchor Song," which seems atonal and out of place among the other amazing songs here. It's not bad by any means, but neither is it up to the standards of the rest of the album. In my opinion it's a weak note on which to close.
The single element that holds these disparate songs together, turns them into a cohesive collection of songs, is Bjork's voice. She has been blessed with an amazing instrument in those vocal cords of hers, wide in range and dynamics, able to build from a whisper to a roar -- and then right back down to a whisper again. Bjork uses her voice as a trumpet or flute player might, to provide colorations of sound and emotion that would otherwise be absent, in the hands of lesser singers. In "Crying" she belts high notes, one after the other, raising the hair on the back of your neck with every one; in "Come to Me," she lulls you, calms you, seduces you; in "Big Time Sensuality" she grunts, moans, growls, and howls, sings scat - and even meows like a cat at one point! She moves effortlessly from joy to anxiety, to anger, to ecstasy...sometimes, all in the space of one note. And listening to her, you can tell that she loves every minute of it. Nowhere is this more evident than in "Like Someone in Love," when she comes for a second time to the line, "sometimes the things I do astound me," - and you can hear the smile in her voice as she sings it.
She not only astounds herself, she astounds a lot of other people as well, myself included. Debut is an amazing album, from an amazing singer - and what's most amazing at all is that her subsequent albums are even better and more varied than this one. If you know about Bjork's work, then I'm preaching to the converted here; if you don't, then give her a try. If you care about music at all - not rock music, not dance music, not experimental music, but just plain all around good music - Bjork is an artist who should absolutely be in your CD collection.

If one word can sum up Bjork's Debut. The word breathtaking comes to mind. Never have I popped into my CD player an album that I can play from end to end and feel the same exact exhilarating thrill even after what must be the 1500th time I've played it!It's a perfect recording from start to finish. Absolutely no filler in this one. Bjork uses her amazing voice, her flawless sense of rhythm & her creative sense of genius to sheer perfection. Conjuring up a deliciously eclectic mixture of sounds guided along by the punky pixie's unique character & charms this CD boasts something for everyone. From the pulsating house beat of "Big Time Sensuality" to the exotic tropical beats of the powerful & moving "Aeroplane". From the Bacharachesque feel of the lilting "Venus As A Boy", the fierce Techno throb of "Violently Happy" to the omnious dramatic haunting single "Human Behaviour" (Quite possibly the finest single ever made, there are few artists who can conjure up enough diverse sound to appeal to the wide range of folks one can imagine getting into this album. Bjork is one of music's great little treasures & her's is a voice we are lucky to have!

Bjork's first solo CD is terrific and a great preview of her later brilliance. As with some of her later work, the CD was produced primarily by Nelle Hooper (who later also worked with Madonna). Compared to her later CDs, which are more multi-layered, "Debut" sounds a little bit thin and poppy, but it's still extremely worthwhile for Bjork fans. You probably know the two hits, "Human Behaviour" and "Big Time Sensuality," but several of the other songs are just as good. "Venus as a Boy" is a beautiful song with strings and one of the most lush sounds of her early songs, and it will probably appeal to fans of "Vespertine." "The Anchor Song" is the only song she produced by herself and it's terrific. Overall, a highly recommended CD from a talented artist.

How often can it be said of a performer that her first solo work surpasses everything she did with her former group? I've been a Sugarcubes fan since their SNL performance in '87 or so, but upon first hearing _Human Behavior_ I realized that Bjork was capable of infinitely more on her own. As the summary says, this is unquestionably one of the five best "alternative" albums of the 1990s.

Debut is a very strong and powerful way to head out into the world music. Many peoples debut album is their weakest due to inexperience. Well its not the same with Bjork, she had plenty of experience from her very first solo album in 1977 when she was 12 years old, to the Sugar Cubes, to Gling Glo. Well Bjork throws something new and unique at you with this one, and to think that as the years went on it would only get better. The songs on this one sort of set the mood for the signiture Bjork sound. It starts off with Human Behaviour, which is probably one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard, even to this day after the thousanth time ever hearing it, it still takes my breath away. Its a very strange and uniquely twisted album but still takes shape in the pop format (chorus-verse-chorus) so it can be enjoyed by just about anyone. Other great songs on the album are "Crying" "Venus as a Boy" which I think is a very cute song, and a funny video to go along with it, "Big Time Sensuality" is fun and has a great beat so you can dance to it. "One Day" is a weird song, but it is so good, it has a horn that plays in it which sets kind of an 80's smooth jazz mood, and one of my favorites which closes the album is "The Anchor Song" which is a beautifully crafted song with only brass, and the beautiful and breathtaking voice of Bjork, this song sort of has an eerie feel to it. But if you're new to Bjork, you're gonna want to start here, other people I've known started out with "Post", or "Homogenic", or "Vespertine" and just told me they didn't quite know what was going on, and they said they were freaked out, so you won't want to start with something so "advanced" quite so soon, start here, then work your way up.

I have just listened to Debut for about the hundredth time since i purchased it last summer. And I have realized that this CD that lies next to me is truly a musical materpiece and a gem to be treasured by all who come across it.

Debut has always been described by Bjork herself as her shy album. Like she's inviting you over to her house and showing you around but she's a little too shy to venture out into the great big world. I now understand why she says this. This album me of Bjork living in a small cottage in a quaint little village, doing her little quirky everyday habits, represented in the music, but still having this apprehension of going outside and showing herself. The reluctance juxtaposed with the boldness of the different vibe the album has is marvelous.

The album opens with a banger as Human Behaviour beats and rumbles with its tribal and jungle drums and sounds. This song is where Bjork is pondering the relationship between humans and animals and you can actually feel yourself exploring the jungle with her trying to find out the answer. The jungle beats fade into the quirky electronic noises of "Crying" followed by a bouncy piano which I imagine Bjork dancing in the foyer of her cottage and wondering why she can't stop crying. The energy of this song sends Bjork into hyper overloads of emotions with its upbeat tempo and acrobatic vocals. Crying then bleeds over into the soft ambient swagger of Venus As A Boy where I imagine Bjork cooking in her kitchen thinking about Venus As A Boy. All that crying has made her hungry. While she is cooking she is thinking of this man who is so perfect he must me godly while all the tinkles bells and violins accompany her cries to Mr. Venus. Suddenly Bjork hears her absolute favorite song on the kitchen radio!! Its "There's More To Life Than This"!! She calls up her girlfriend to tell her and Bjork just can't contain her joy and starts dancing to no ends. Thats what this song reminds me of. Being at home and hearing your favorite pop tune and blasting it for the whole neighborhood to hear. When Bjork gets too tired from dancing she settles back onto her sofa thinking about how she's been "Like Someone In Love". The mandolin is stroking her throat as the notes float out of her mouth. She almost wants to cry. This song is very relaxed but with a frantic nature. Then this song floats seamlessly into Big Time Sensuality which is sure to get you on the dance floor. Bjork knows something big is about to happen. She KNOWS so she makes this song terribly upbeat and noisy and crazy because her excitement just cant be contained. "One Day" reminds me of being at your house very early in the morning or in the evening looking through all the trinkets and and knick knacks you have at home and just thinking about how one day it will all come true. This song is very dreamy with its flutes and ambient sounds and Bjorks big yet soothing vocals. If One Day is a dream then "Aeroplane" is like abrubtly waking up from that dream and realizing it was just a dream. With its brassy big band jazz elements and hip hop back beat. Its a very urgent frustrated song. You can feel the frustration in Bjork's voice and she realizes her lover has gone away. But this song then calms down into ambient jungle noises where "Come To Me" decided to appear. This song is one to listen to after getting off work. Curl into bed at sunset and gaze out your window and chill with Bjork. With its haunting piano and ghostly back up vocals, and chilling instrumentation this song is sure to relax your nerves after a hard days work. After you've relaxed its time to go crazy. Violently Happy is a mischievious, tricky song. It foreshdows what Bjork would become later on. Its very destructive and the music represents that. Its a dancey yet haunting tune that is probably the biggest standout on this album. Bjork is daring you to jump off roofs with her. And finally we come to "The Anchor Song". The best song on the album. This song is so ebautiful. Listen to it in the dark and gaze at the moonlight. Bjork wants to live with me at the bottom of the ocean. She sings about in the most beautiful way. The brass band playing their haunting tune will lull you to sleep as you think about the ocean. Let Bjork lead you there. And we have come to the end of this coy yet upfront album. 12 years hath passed and it still remains one of the greatest. This is a masterpiece that everyone will enjoy. It reminds me of staying in my house and doing playful things. Debut-BUY IT NOW!

Beethoven used to respond to critics who didn't think highly of his work by saying, "My music is for a later age." I think Bjork could say the same thing to hers. I pulled out this CD after not having heard it in 4 or 5 years and can honestly say, it sounds as fresh and original now as it did when it was first released in '93. I felt like I was listening to it for the first time again and had discovered something new. What makes this recording so timeless is that Bjork is able to take seemingly different musical ideas and moods and make them make sense together. And while it's not always pretty, it's obvious she's more concerned with truth. Bjork's music contains the original energy of joy and her startling and wonderfully expressive voice is a gift to all of us mere humans.

Some might have doubted whether or not Bjork could make it solo. She proved her critics wrong with her first album, the very powerful "Debut."

On this album, Bjork bridges the gap between alternative music and club. Pumping bass lines abound on this musical masterpiece.

Actually, my favorite song was one that wasn't even a hit: "There's More to Life than This" (recorded live at the Milk Bar toilets, of all places) is a phenomonal track. "Human Behavior," "Venus as a Boy," and "Big Time Sensuality" all enjoyed success on the charts. The other songs complement these pillars admirably.

Bjork proves she's for real on "Debut." Buy this album and say hello to great Icelandic music!

Although I am partial to Post as my favorite Bjork album, Debut is an excellent place to start for those interested in checking her out for the first time.

More dance-oriented than her subsequent releases, Debut was 4-5 years ahead of its time upon its release in 1993. Many are familiar with the kettle drum groove of the first track, "Human Behavior", from its run on MTV years ago. The rest of the album is quite different and is also very eclectic.

The star of the show, of course, is Bjork's voice. The sorrow in her voice on "Crying" is so strong that it almost compels one to tears. Not an easy achievement on a polyrhythmic dance track. (Whitney Houston, eat your heart out!) Her voice is also well showcased on a harp-accompanied cover of the old standard "Like Someone In Love".

Other standout tracks include the happily emotive (and vocally expressive) "Big Time Sensuality", the gentle dance groove of "One Day", and the conversational voice/saxaphone interplay of "The Anchor Song".