Björk’s New Echo: Post-Pandemic, an Artist Reaches a New Wave of Listeners

Icelandic alternative artist Björk sought a revival in the past year with the release of her 10th studio album, Fossora. The artist, most notably known for her work in the ’90s, now reaches a younger generation through her raw lyricism and dynamic beats.

Written by Antonio Arizmendi

Illustrated by Catherine Elizalde

Iceland is a modest country. On its glacial terrain and through sparse coastal towns, nothing indicates its relation to one of the most experimental and sonically impressive musicians of this era. Instead, that talent seemed to creep in, gentle as a swan, before reaching its ultimate tantara at the turn of the century.

Björk Guðmundsdóttir, simply referred to as Björk, erupted out of Reykjavík, Iceland, with a unique sense of storytelling. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she garnered success through her embrace of experimentalism. Armed with a drumming metronome and a growling, soaring timbre, Björk has won numerous BRIT awards and developed close partnerships with fellow avant-garde superstars like fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

Listeners fell in love with Björk because of her bubbly and sensual personality, along with the sometimes chaotic, sometimes soothing — but always unique — songs she produced in wonderful succession, such as “Human Behavior” from Debut and “It’s Oh So Quiet” from Post. Homogenic, one of her most popular debuts of the time, became a masterpiece for the critics; Rolling Stone named it “one of the boldest — and most exciting — albums of the year.” A triumph in roaring vocals and simple string melodies, the album engages with pathos in a way unmatched by any other in her generation.

Yet, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Björk became lost to critics and many fans. Though the reasons remain unclear, it may be related to the artist’s lack of publicity, along with her newer albums lacking the originality of her earlier works. She no longer received the praise awarded to Homogenic, with steadily lower ratings plaguing albums. These lower ratings, including a gradual decrease in the number of weeks on Billboard’s 200, made it seem that the singer was fading from recognition.

However, it was the rapid exchange of music through social media that rescued her reputation, particularly during the pandemic. As Gen Z plunged into their handheld devices and headphones during the COVID-19 pandemic, Björk’s name was cast out into the technicolor waters of TikTok along with current names in the vibrant music scene; namely SOPHIE, 100 Gecs, and AJ Cook. After around two years of online circulation, Björk would collect enough new fans to reach her Billboard Artist 100 peak at No. 50 in 2022.

Possibly, it was the alternative aspects of the Icelandic singer — her dynamic voice, her ethereal melodies, or her alien fashions — that appealed to a generation of youth becoming increasingly more radical against the turmoil spawned by the pandemic. A focus on sporadic, shifting rhythms and technological distortions in her music coincided brilliantly with directions away from the repetitive, generic songs instilled in popular culture. Further, Björk’s patronage of absurd Y2K ensembles, namely the infamous Swan Dress, intrigued an isolated community searching for avenues of surreal expression. 

Most importantly, it was the rawness interlaced in her lyrics that drew in her new audience. Björk deconstructs most barriers separating herself from the audience as she discusses both agony and limitless passion, the reality of loneliness, and the fantasy of dreamworlds. Songs like “Black Lake” emphasize this point, with the lyrics: “I am bored of your apocalyptic obsessions / Did I love you too much?” Layered with swooning strings, a tinkling music box, or even sounds sourced from spore communication, where underground neural networks pulse with the beat of decomposition, her songs become a whirlpool of vocal determination and honesty.

 A masterclass of this unique rhetoric lies in “Pagan Poetry,” the lead single from her third album, Vulnicura. A soft EDM drill pulsates throughout the song like a heartbeat while chiming, fairy-like melodies contrast with the growl of Björk’s voice; even dots and dashes from Morse code weave themselves into the sonic landscape. Her lyrics, filled with unique detail, depict her lover's “crooked five fingers” and bleed into all-encompassing repetition, proving her mastery of the rhetoric of obsession. Full of spontaneity and passion, her work is meant for an audience looking for liberation from the numbing isolation of the Pandemic.

So, as the isolation of the Pandemic trapped young people in quarantined bedrooms, Björk’s masterful work was resurrected and fed to new listeners through social media. This rebirth was so powerful that it was a driving force in the release of Björk’s latest studio album, Fossora, which came out after a six-year hiatus.

Returning to the emotional vulnerability of her earlier albums, Björk crafted Fossora to appeal to listeners searching for an organic, dance-like vision of humanity. Just as in “Pagan Poetry,” pathos becomes paramount in “Atopos” — this time with a touch of rave influence. The thunder of bass clarinets produces a breathy force of direction, and Björk projects with her iconic, unrestricted tremolo. As a tribute to human resilience and her newfound audience, she crafted the song around togetherness. Pausing those bleating woodwinds and fungi-based tones, she joyously states, “Hope is a muscle / That allows us to connect.”

After gaining a platform on social media, Björk frequently DJs at pulsing nightclubs in her homeland, pumping her fists to the joy of her own success. Her collaborations with music artists like Shygirl and Dirty Projectors claim spots in many playlists. Her voice still radiates through TikTok’s “For You” page with a graceful intrigue, particularly tracks like the head-banging “Army of Me” and the sensual, chime-y “Venus as a Boy.”

Björk has proved that her generational influence knows no bounds. Like a neon-tinted glacier, she has become a persistent voice of uniqueness in the music community, a legacy actively enriched by her audience and her soul-reaching discography.