There are two things to keep in mind when reading this book, if you are reading it in 2016 and onward: this was published in 1996, before Homogenic was released in 1997. Secondly, even though Björk allowed Martin Aston access to interview her friends, family, and collaborators for his book on her, this is not an authorized/official biography. So in essence, even with all the candid and brilliant interviews/quotes from everyone (including quotes from Björk herself, pulled from many past interviews), all here should be taken with a grain of salt.
With that being said, that explains why most of this book feels like it's bogged down with a little too much information that feels more like padding, and makes this a more tedious - and longer - read than is necessary. Like, Björk is synonymous with Iceland and vice versa. As much as I loved the care and depth that was put into the research of Iceland's history, and how it correlates and gives us a better, clearer understanding of Björk's background, influences, and makeup through it, it was basically an information dump that only held the biography back instead of moving it forward. Less would have been more. The mapping of Björk's career from when she was an 11-year old child prodigy with a gold record to her name/legacy, to her punk days (from Spit and Snot, Tappi Tíkarrass, KUKL, Elgar Sisters, Exodus, and Megas), and The Sugarcubes, was fantastic and so well-executed, and the quotes from her friends, family, and colleagues made it even more of a treat, much of it contradicting Björk's perception of her upbringing, but in such a way that it's endearing, sweet, and hilarious, humanizing her even more. When most biographies gloss over her early years (because not too much is known about those bands she worked with), I loved how this one delves deeper into more than music scene, but how Björk and her musical comrades were the core, heart, and soul of a revolution of rebellion, fueled by philosophy, politics, surrealism, making love, and pushing the biggest statement of all: being yourself. If it weren't for those bands/eras, Björk more than likely wouldn't quite be the same artist that she is today, and for that, I truly applaud this book on giving such generous insight into such a magical time in Björk's life and career, that deserves more attention, because it was truly a remarkable, and inspiring, period. But again: while much of this book glimmers in that regard, it all too often falls back on the info-dump thing, and also goes on for far too long, to the point where this book rambles, and goes on and on, when it should have moved on to the next stage in Björk's life/career in pages if not chapters ago.
But I can understand why, because after all, this was 1996, and as it were, Björk was only getting started. If anything, this book is a testament to just how amazing Björk still is: that when this book was published, at 20 years into her career, and at the dawn of solo album #3 (4 if you're counting her first album as a youngster), she was so interesting, had staked quite a claim into music culture in and outside of Iceland, and had achieved so much as an artist, that at only her being 31 years old at the time, she was worthy of having a book of this caliber written about her. Björkography is far from perfect. Yes, it drags, it rambles. It's a shame that for how well it maps Björk's career, it suffers and loses itself, BUT...it tried, and all in all, it succeeded.
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