Björk ~ Army of Me (featuring Skunk Anansie)
Seriously. Let's sit for a moment and gaze at the glory that would BE an army of yours truly.
Something special isn't it?
The reason I'm ratponying (shut up, it's a verb) this particular version of this particular song is because it only just dawned on me how much this track symbolises. And symbolism is what this WHOLE SITE IS ABOUT... pretty much.
Now, I like Björk. I like her a lot. And I can laugh at the jokes made about her (see Family Guy - Björk or Bobcat Goldthwait?). But at the same time, the power that this woman has over her voice is astounding. Recently I watched her performance of "All is Full of Love" from Coachella and it's spellbinding. Hypnotic. And that's what inspired me to write about Army of Me.
About 2 years ago, the rat to this pony (well, he's probably the pony to my rat... sigh) Kam, made me a collection of 5 CDs. One CD for each decade since the 1960s. I learned a lot from these CDs and have padded out my music collection with that music since then. On the 1990s disc, the first track infact, is a version of Army of Me with a much much gruntier band behind her... Skunk Anansie.
They start out like... like... drums in the deep.
The band is only part of what makes this version THAT much more powerful than the single version. Her vocals the whole way through sound more urgent and raw. And then the grunting and whispering subsides and she lets out the most almighty primal screams.
And IIIIIIIIF you comPLAAAAAAAAAAAIN once MOOOOOOOOORE...
She switches from singing sweetly (as sweetly as she can and don't forget... she was a Sugarcube!) to roaring like a banshee having the shit beaten out of it by a chainsaw wielding cat.
This screaming appealed to me so much and added so much to a song I didn't really care for that much at the beginning that it became a yardstick for me. From then on I would gauge the musical approachability of other people by listening to their reaction to that 30 seconds of blood curdling shrieks. If they reacted the same way I did (ie "Holy fucking shit... that's amazing...") then I felt a bond and that bond extended into my sharing music with them, safe in the knowledge that we were on the same wave length. However, more commonly the reaction seemed to be "Oh Jesus that sounds awful!" to which I would turn it off and put on some fucking Lionel Richie or something (much respect to Mr Richie, but he was the first name that popped into my head.. and today I acquired Dancing on the Ceiling on vinyl, so ya know, it's all good).
What I suppose I'm trying to say is... the people who appreciated the beauty behind that sound (which granted would probably sound horrible out of context... outside your bedroom window at 4am) I knew would be people who felt art in the way that I felt it... and music as being something beyond JUST something to listen to in the background. Later I would go on to tell people that if they didn't enjoy the screaming then they weren't worthy of being my friend... but that's a WHOLE 'nother issue. HA! I'm a blowhard but fucking hell. You just have to track this version of the song down and listen to it and appreciate the sheer BALLS on such a beautiful petite little Icelandic woman.