Bookmarks: David Attenborough

As a tease for the soon-coming Bjork Meets Attenborough programme, they've released a bit of the pair's chat where David explains why pop is about sex*:

When asked by Bjork how music works in the modern day, Sir David said: “Well, one is absolutely clear, and that is the sexuality.

“And as it were classical times, troubadours singing up to their lady loves up on the balcony come and join me or let me come in.

“But in our own culture now, I mean pop music is hugely sexual, there can’t be any doubt about that. And that is why it is so popular amongst people between 15 and 30. That’s the peak of sexuality and it’s the peak of the passion about music.”

* - This claim, explicitly, takes no account of the Johnny Borrell solo album

Bjork falls short

Bjork was looking to raise £375,000 from her fans through Kickstarter, in order to port the Bioplhilia app to Android and Windows 8.

In a handwritten note, Bjork told fans:

I feel I cannot leave this project before this has been done since this seems to be the area where it can bloom most

It's not going to bloom now, as the campaign has been dropped a third of the way through, with only £15,370 promised.

There's no explanation of why the campaign has been ended, although the slow take-up would seem to be the most likely reason.

There was an educational programme connected with the app, and much of the Kickstarter plea focused on this - but it doesn't disguise the fact that the fabulously wealthy Bjork was seeking other people to fund the porting of an app which retails for thirteen dollars in the iTunes store. While the education programme might be not-for-profit, there's no suggestion that the Kickstarter project is funding a not-for-profit scheme.

The Biophilia educational website is also a little strange - without wanting to impugn either its motivation or value, if this is a "not for profit" scheme, there's nothing on the website which underpins this status - no charity number, no non-profit pledge. And there's not very much detail on who the organisation is. While the app and how it can be used educationally is explored through a series of videos, there's not very much on the 'who are you'.

Yes, you might give to a Kickstarter to get a signed photo or an exclusive t-shirt, but if what's being sold is that you're helping out a not-for-profit educational organisation, you'd be looking for a bit more explanation of how your money actually supports that aim, surely?

Of course, it might just be that she's paused the appeal in order to add porting to the Blackberry Z10.

1993 all over again: 6 - Bjork

6. Bjork - Human Behaviour

The only act to get two tracks into the top 20, this time we see Bjork being stalked by either an extreme furry, or else someone struggling with a prototype onesie. This would also win MTV's "Breakthough video" for the year.



[Part of 1993 all over again]
[Buy: Buy: Debut]

1993 all over again: NME's best singles two decades back

Although we have a bright new year waiting to be written upon, let's not forget that January is two-faced, looking back as well as forward. And no day is more push-me-pull-you than New Year's Day itself.

So, to show 2013 what sort of challenges it will need to rise to and to lob in a few lazy posts of embeds, let's hold hands and countdown the 20 best singles of 20 years ago, as decided upon by the NME.

20: Bjork - Venus As A Boy
Possibly the point where we should have said "enough with the kooky", as Bjork stares into middle distance and rolls eggs round her head. Cooking doesn't come any more twee than this.

"His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex" doesn't really hold true in the real world, does it? Not unless Jeremy Beadle was... but no, let us pursue that thought no further.



19. Senser - Eject
18. Paul Weller - Sunflower
17. Shara Nelson - Down That Road
16. Radiohead - Creep
15. New Order - Regret
14. Blur - For Tomorrow
13. Spiritualized - Electric Mainline EP
12. Pet Shop Boys - Go West
11. Manic Street Preachers - From Despair To Where?
10. Huggy Bear - Her Jazz
9. Belly - Feed The Tree
8. Elastica - Stutter
7. Tindersticks - Marbles
6. Bjork - Human Behaviour
5. Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name Of...
4. Suede - Animal Nitrate
3. Leftfield/Lydon - Open Up
2. Credit To The Nation - Call It What You Want
1. The Breeders - Cannonball

Bjork: It's just like punk

Bjork's Biophila - partly released via apps rather than just on a CD - is like punk. It must be, she says so:

"For 10 years I'd just been listening to people moan on about how the internet was killing music. And I was like, 'Hang on, technology is not the enemy of music.

"Maybe it's because we've let businessmen set up the model of how we distribute music. If artists would get involved... that's why I've been comparing this project to punk. Obviously not literally the songs, but it's kind of like when I was 16.

"When we wanted to put out an album, we put out an album. And made the poster ourselves."

Yes, it's just like the DIY movement. If you ignore it being released in the US on Universal's Polydor imprint, or being distributed in the UK by part of EMI; and if punk meant having to get your music approved by the richest company in the world in order to gain access to the app store. Exactly like punk.

Kanye plots to remove fans, pants

Kanye West has, rather quickly, been turning into the hip hop Elton John - still capable of the odd flash of brilliance, but mostly just grumpy and irrelevant. It turns out, though, that it's not because he's lost it. Kanye has a plan:

"I made a decision. I wanna make popular music, but I want less fans," he told writer Sean Fennessey when asked if was comfortable with fame. "I want the freedom of having less fans. It's like the freedom of having less money. If you have less money, you have less responsibility."

Wow, how lucky his fans are melting away. At this rate, by the middle of 2011, Kanye will have no responsibility at all.

Yes, you might well ask if Kanye has actually thought this through, and if the evidence of all human experience is that the more money you have, the less responsible you have to be. And, indeed, if Kanye wants to not have so much money, if he'd not be better off giving away the money he already has rather than behaving like a petulant twit at awards shows in the hope of making money less quickly in the future.

It seems, though, that once Kanye is poor enough to no longer be responsible, he's going to take his clothes off:

It's like Björk. If she wanted to pose naked, you'd be like, 'Oh, that's Björk.' But if I wanted to pose naked, people would draw all type of things into it. I definitely feel like, in the next however many years, if I work out for two months, that I'll pose naked. I break every rule and mentality of hip-hop, of black culture, of American culture."

Oh, yes - keeping fit and appearing naked in a magazine. That's never happened before in American culture.

Kanye then adds that he's aiming for 20,000 fans, although given that he thinks he's one of the greatest living lyricists of his age, losing so many followers will be a real challenge for him.

Bjork steps in

When Iceland's economy froze as part of the global panic, the witty thing to say was that now the country only had Bjork to rely on. As is often the case, this turns out to be nearer the mark than you might have thought: Audur Capital's attempts to regrow the Icelandic economy have called in Bjork for some heavyweight celebrity endorsement.

China: The Sex Clarke Five will never be invited now

It seems Bjork's decision to shout "Tibet Tibet" while playing Shanghai has frightened the life out of the Chinese government. Yes, although nobody else (bar the odd journalist and some swans) has been bothered by anything Bjork has done for decades, she's finally got a reaction.

The Chinese government are busy guys, repressing left, right and centre, but they've taken steps to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again:

"Any artistic group or individual who have ever engaged in activities which threaten our national sovereignty will not be allowed in," the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on its website.

During performances, entertainers who "threaten national unity", "whip up ethnic hatred", "violate religious policy or cultural norms" or "advocate obscenity or feudalism and superstition", will also be banned, the rules state.

Coldplay have announced plans to drop the song 'Let's Reorganise on Feudalist Lines' from their set, in the hope of being able to play Beijing someday.

Bjork croaking

Bjork - who seems to have terrible problems with her voice - has pulled this week's Helsinki gig. This is the same throat ailment which persuaded her to avoid Sheffield. Or at least she's trying to make that look plausible.

Bjork gets annoyed, won't go wild

Bjork - the planned headliner for Vince Power and Geoff Oakes Go Wild In The Country Knebworth fest - has pulled out with a week to go.

If that sounds last minute, according to her explanation, it sums up the festival's approach:

"Organisers Geoff Oakes and Vince Power for Renaissance have been unable to secure any staging, sound and lighting for this festival making it impossible for the headline artists to perform and are unable to fulfill their contractual obligations to all of the artists contracted to perform at their event," a statement read.

Are there now so many festivals we're facing a scrap for rigs and speakers? Has it come to this?

Bjork attempts to clear up Tibet

It's perhaps escaped her notice but the Chinese repression of Tibet story has moved on quite a bit since Bjork muttered 'Tibet' onstage in Shanghai. Or perhaps it hasn't, as she's decided to provide some, um, elucidation as to what was running through her mind:

"When I said 'Tibet, Tibet', I whispered it three times. There was no fuss in the room. It happened afterwards on websites. It shows more than anything that China has become the next superpower in the world. And the issue is: how are they going to deal with Western moral issues like freedom of speech?"

Actually, watching the Chinese shut down web access and send troops rolling into the markets of Tibet, I think we can guess what their response is to that issue.

We're a little bit puzzled as to why she stresses she only "whispered it" and that the "fuss" came afterwards - was it meant to be her striking a blow for free speech, or was it not?

Bjork's year of living dangerously

Having upset Serbia by dedicating the song Declare Independence to Kosovo last week, this week, Bjork's now done the song in Shanghai and yelled 'Tibet, Tibet' over the end of the song.

It's not gone down well:

"If she really did this, then this woman really makes people throw up," one comment on popular Chinese Web site Sina.com said.

It's nice that the commenter decided to withold his politically-motivated puking until he's had it confirmed that she really did it. Too often the quality of political debate is sullied by people spewing before they're certain of all the facts.

Apparently, people who were there were a bit underwhelmed, too:

"The atmosphere was very strange, uncomfortable compared to the rest of the concert," said audience member Stephen Gow, a British teacher who lives in Shanghai. People didn't boo, Gow said, but they left the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center hurriedly.

It's wonderful that Bjork showed her disgust at Chinese official policy by ensuring that when she did a gig in the country she didn't cash the cheque before muttering something about Tibet.

Exit exit a Kosovo no-no?

Bjork seems convinced she's been dumped by Serbian Exit Festival because she'd dedicated a song to Kosovo while playing in Tokyo:

"Maybe a Serb attended my concert [in Tokyo] and called home, and therefore the concert in Novi Sad was cancelled."

The organisers deny this, but are a bit vague about what might actually have happened:

According to EXIT's general manager Bojan Boskovic, "These stories are quite bizarre and untrue. EXIT Festival has never cancelled any artist's performance because of their political point-of-view or statements. We'd like to clarify that the festival is right on track and festival preparations are our best ever, we're really looking forward to announcing our program and, moreover, seeing everybody again at the event in July."

Boskovic continues, "EXIT was the first forum in the Balkans to gather people from all the former Yugoslavian countries after the civil wars. Started nine years ago as a student-initiated protest against the Milosevic regime, EXIT has become a symbol of togetherness and cultural diversity and is a social force that every year brings together more and more people, from every background and culture of the region."

Boskovic doesn't say if Bjork had been asked to play, or if she had been dropped, and if she had been, why. The attempt to focus on anything other than the question of what happened to Bjork looks a little like avoidance, if nothing else.

Swellings choke off Bjork festival date

It seems a shame that, having flown halfway round the world and literally fighting her way through the airport to get there, Bjork is having to cancel her Big Day Out dates in Australia.

Apparently, she's got "swelling vocal cords", it says here.

Bjork re-releases greatest hit

Much as the return of Trevor McDonald to the News At Ten reminds you of happier times while feeling sympathy for his plight today, the news of Bjork attacking a photographer at the airport takes you back, doesn't it?

Herald photographer Glenn Jeffrey said his shirt was ripped all the way down the back by Bjork, who was with a man who had asked Jeffrey not to take photos.

"I took a couple of pictures... and as I turned and walked away, she came up behind me, grabbed the back of my black skivvy (long tee shirt) and tore it down the back," Jeffrey was reported saying in the Herald.

"As she did this she fell to the ground. At no stage did I touch her or speak with her," he said.

The man accompanying the singer said to her: "B, don't do this, B don't do this."

Mind you, it's really rude to take pictures of Bjork when she's not dressed as a swan or Aphrodite or plutonium.

It's 11 years since Bjork last attacked someone in an airport.

Thom Yorke lets down Macca gently

Paul McCartney apparently asked Thom Yorke to do some work with him. Thom said 'no':

“My daughter was putting an album together and she put us in touch. I asked Thom to do a duet, but he said he couldn’t because he only felt happy working on his own and Radiohead’s material.”

Yes, that's true, that, Paul.

Here's Thom not feeling happy working with UNKLE:



Here's Mr. Yorke clearly uncomfortably collaborating with Bjork:



Thom Yorke obviously wasn't happy working with Drugstore, either:



There was no frisson of joy when Thom worked with REM:



Perhaps, Paul, it could just be that he didn't want to work with, well... you?

A sign that we're in the final stages...

The traditional signal that the home straight has been entered for the Glastonbury festival: Michael Eavis telling the BBC that the festival has been a success:

Festival-goers had complained of poor sound from the Pyramid Stage, with The Killers' set on Saturday being punctuated by cries of "turn it up" from some.

Mr Eavis said the speaker system had been changed for this year's festival.

"I'm sorry about the PA, it's not quite strong enough for us here, so I'm slightly disappointed by that. I think we're going to have to look at that again."

Mr Eavis also conceded that there were problems with the photo ID system used for festival tickets this year.

"The printing wasn't really good enough so we have to improve that," he said.

He revealed that 2008's headliners were already confirmed, but refused to reveal who they were.

"It's not Muse or U2," he added.

Well, at least that's a relief.

Apparently, Bjork went on for 20 minutes past the curfew time on Friday night/Saturday morning, but the council don't seem unduly bothered:

[T]he local council said that an over-run of Bjork's set on Friday night, breaking a 0030 curfew by 20 minutes, breached the festival's licence.

Mendip District Council's planning and environment manager Charles Uzzell said: "There could be a review of the licence, and the ultimate sanction is the removal of the licence but I don't see that as a possibility."

He added that the rest of the festival had been a "success".

And you have to praise Mendip's grown-up attitude - a lot of places would have sent the cops in to shut down the stage rather than adopting a "we'll talk about this later" approach.

Blog round-updatey thingy: Catsuits within catsuits

Of course, if someone was going to sell us down the river, it'd be Sharon Osbourne, telling us to vote for The Master with a clunking spot of sexual euphemising. We bet he'd not even switched on the satellite at that point. Oh... hang about, it's back to Glastonbury, isn't it?

CSS seem to have been the best thing so far today, with the Guardian blog reporting on how to get around the problems of quick-changing when you're dressed skintight:

Simply appear in a glittery catsuit, then a few songs in (at the beginning of Meeting Paris Hilton, to be exact), take it off revealing... another catsuit, this time bright yellow. Though she was almost outdone by a sudden influx of people dressed as drum majorettes in the audience.

It's also the Guardian that has had its ears switched on, overhearing this:

What? You've just woken up? You're stuck in a tent? Your own tent? Someone else's tent! And you don't know how you got there? And you've got no clothes on! And there's no clothes in the tent? Whatsoever? And you want us to come pick you up and bring you some clothes? Would love to mate, but I'm watching Lily Allen...

Ah, Keith Allen's daughter. Worth leaving a friend naked and stranded for? Christina Nott thinks so:

Some people are a bit snobby about Lily, but I thought the gig was a great afternoon festival set. Bouncing around in luminous pink with a cigarette and a really strong ska reggae band, it was a real spirit lifter. Rain? What rain?

Hmm. We've not chased any of Allen's set up on the BBC yet, but we're betting that the "strng ska reggae band" is going to turn out to be more Musical Youth than Rico. We shall see.

Although we're still not sure what the hell Jack was doing during the first hundred years or so of Torchwood's operations - oh, sure, come along after the battle of Canary Wharf and remake Torchwood in the Doctor's image, but couldn't you have done that in 1901 and saved us all a lot of trouble? And how, exactly, did he get the job?

Tinyjo has been spending time in the caberet tent - apparently, Nicola Conti is still doing that act with the toy monkey. Simple Brainwaves is virtually at Glastonbury, i.e. watching on TV, and spotted something we'd missed:

Oh and the lead singer from Hot Chip looks a bit like Buster from the late, great sitcom Arrested Development, don't you think?

You know, it might have been nice to have something more in the way of explication for the absence of the rest of Torchwood at this key moment than a throwaway line about them going to the Himalayas. Couldn't they at least have been trapped in a temporal shift or something?
The Telegraph's Iain Gray had a crack at paparazzing last night, although actually he was taking photos in front of the stage, which isn't papping, is it? He did get a lovely shot of Bjork-being-snapped, though.

His colleague Christopher Howse has, meanwhile, discovered that he isn't the sole tie-wearer on Worthy Farm:

The drummer of Mumm-Ra was wearing one last night.

The Blood Arm skirt over their Glasto experience to get to the, frankly more important, business of amusing names for ice creams in continental Europe. Although why you'd pick a Girlie over a Bum Bum, I can't imagine.

Back at the Guardian blog, they've heard a rumour that David Cameron is thinking of turning up.

Hmm.. a plausible-looking politician with a pretty young wife, risen from nowhere, taking any chance of a televisual appearance, and a strange lack of policies. Why is that chiming with us this evening?

Broadsheet round-up:

Alexis Petridis was down the front (or, at least, perched comfortably in the VIP area) for the Arcade Fire and the Guardian:

Variety of end-of-days scenarios suggested in lyrics seem oddly more pertinent when you're listening to them up to your knees in slurry, stood next to a disconcerting man in a jester's hat, sniffing amyl nitrate. In addition, certain lyrics take on a curiously prophetic bent given inclement conditions: "Come out of the rain!" exhorts Butler at one juncture. "You can do it!" Minor mid-set lull blown away by cataclysmic finale, involving mass singalong to Wake Up.

It seems that the BBC had focused quite heavily on the mid-set lull, then.

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello seized the Guardian blog to ruminate on festivals which have lost their soul:

As for festivals we haven't enjoyed playing: there was some horrible thing... I don't need to say which one, but I don't enjoy playing where all I see is fucking Miller Lite commercials in my face and tons of fucking cops.

I don't know whether Glastonbury is a travellers' festival still: that's not what I heard but I'm going to find out for myself after this. I heard that it's a land of rape and murder. Some experts, some reliable sources told me. But of course Glastonbury still has the ability to do change people's minds and alter their consciousness. You've just got to get the right bands and the right people will come, and they'll have the right reaction - liberation, catharsis, grabbing the tits of somebody else's girlfriend. You know - the usual!

The Telegraph has attempted to out-grump the Mail by sending Christopher Howse along to Worthy Farm. He's the "only festival goer with a tie", which means he can expect pete Doherty to seek him out to borrow it later on, then. Christoper hasn't fallen for the "traveller's festival" story any more than Eugene has:

Among the 30,000 cars in the car parks, there are plenty of Audis, Volvos and BMWs. Ten thousand, almost all young, came greenly by train and then chugged the last miles on dirty old buses.

"We're doing a dance degree at Greenwich," says my 20-year-old neighbour, pointing to her fair-haired friend. But now they're spending the weekend working in a vegan cafe, hoping to slip out to see Bjork. Bjork has been here before, she just can't remember.

If for some Glastonbury is joining the social season with Ascot and Henley, its style is still young and grungy. At Henley gentlemen must still wear ties. Here I spent 24 hours without seeing anyone else with one on. Ascot cocktail dresses and feather hats can look vulgar. Here the middle class come in muddy disguise.

Over in the The Times, Pete Paphides looks at what the bill tells us about the modern world:

Winehouse aside, it was a bill that rammed home the point that we are living in a postOasis age, where supersized indie bands trumpet the everyman values that allow their fans to live vicariously through them. Dundee’s bafflingly popular practitioners of indie dirges, The View, seemed to suit the worsening conditions. If only their fans’ chant – “The View are on fire!” – were true.

Bookmarks: Some other things to read on the web

The top ten most ridiculous music couples, as chosen by Stylus magazine:

07. Goldie and Bjork (mid-90s)
Maybe the bomber was trying to tell her something. In ’95 it might’ve seemed like Goldie would go down in the history books as the man that brought jungle to the masses, and not the ‘90s punchline he is today, but while the internet froths over the release of Bjork’s Volta, you could probably count the people on one hand who can even name an album Goldie’s released this decade. Assuming he’s even released one, anyway.

Ryan Gilbey remembers his first gig:

While I would love to continue claiming that I lost my live-music cherry seeing Prince on his Lovesexy tour, that was in fact my third gig. My first - oh, the shame - was Erasure at the Hammersmith Odeon. In case you're wondering why I didn't simply promote my second gig - Sinead O'Connor at the Dominion - to first place, I think there's something a bit drab about saying that Sinead O'Connor, wonderful though she is, was the first person you saw play live. It's like saying that your first car was a Mini Metro.

The Eagles are the best band in the world, reckons New York magazine. It does show its working:

The fact that in 1978, they attempted to cash in on the disco craze by writing “The Disco Strangler,” a song about a murderer who loves the nightlife.

An interesting, though fundamentally flawed piece on Indymedia casts Paris Hilton as a victim of celebrity, without stopping to wonder if maybe she sought that status in the first place:

There are many unhealthy aspects to this whole business. In the first place, the Paris Hilton celebrity phenomenon was a product of the foul media-entertainment apparatus in the US and a generally diseased social climate. Under healthier circumstances, Hilton’s “bad girl” antics would have been of concern only to her family and close friends.