personal universe: “[Her songs] have physical character, whom Björk will portray on the album cover: the shy-girl songs of Debut as a virginal innocent in silver mohair; the volcanic beats of Homogenic as a patriotic warrior; the tribal rhythms and trumpets of Volta as a wanderer in electric blue, neon green, and red,” Emily Witt of The New York Times Style Magazine writes. Throughout her expansive discography, each piece of composition comes to life through Björk herself, through her shrill, sometimes thunderous vocal range, to an accompaniment of brash synths, orchestral maneuvers, and an occasional brass symphony. As is customary of Camp, her style is hard to define, if not by one word alone: manic. Con-
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sider the Chris Cunningham-directed music video for her single, “All Is Full of Love,” in which the singer’s face is superimposed onto a hyper-realistic robot, engaged in one of the most human acts possible: sex, love, feeling. Throughout her discography, Björk has remained unafraid to discuss the concepts of being human, but also the experience of
being a sexual being, as Camp emphasizes. Throughout her work, too, Björk has made a point to comment on the future and on technology in ways many other musicians and artists have not. She exhibits this in unique ways through the lyrical content and production of her works: “Björk is on the cutting edge of finding ways the new media technology can enhance and expand the aesthetic experience of music, rather than deplete and cheapen it,” declares Simon Reynolds of The Guardian. He undeniably makes some points: with a popular opinion reducing electronic music genres to “unsophisticated trash,” Bjork manages to spin that mindset on its head. Björk, in her creative drive, seems to exist in a world all her own, far ahead of her time.
Stemming from Björk, we have seen a rise in attributions of complex production styles throughout more modern recordings. Under the umbrella of “art pop” or “synth pop,” artists have begun experimenting with the advantages that can be gained through sound manipulation, and integration of one’s personal style into a new wave musical construction. It is important to note the genre’s interesting approach to the relationship between sound and color. Charli XCX, for example, who has begun to rise within the “art pop” realm due to her experimentation with production, has a condition known as synesthesia, in which the stimulation of one’s sensory pathway triggers stimulation in another—in her case, as is the case with many, experiencing sound leads her to associate said sound with color (this being known as Chromesthesia). She notes loving songs that she associates with black, pink, purple, or red (in an interview with BBC’s Mark Savage in 2013). “If I’m writing and I can’t see what the video will look like in my head, I know the song isn’t for me,” she said. Claire Elise Boucher, more popularly known under their moniker, Grimes, exists along the same path as Charli, noted for their place on the boundary of synth pop and the unknown. Since the Vancouver-born singer-songwriter and producer’s debut on the scene, they’ve made it clear that their intention was to be
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