Bjork's Volumen is a brilliant collection of videos spanning the first three solo albums of the Icelandic diva's career. Not only is it a definitive treat for the legions of already loyal Bjork-fanatics, but it also provides a great introduction to those who have only heard her name in passing. In fact, Volumen celebrates the very uniqueness which has consistently kept Bjork a step and a half away from mainstream pop. The DVD version of Volumen has a simple and easy-to-use interface. Although there are no "special bonus features", the digital transfer is pretty darn good and certainly all of the videos have never looked better. The sound is excellent with rich lows and clean highs...My personal favorites are "Human Behaviour", "Big Time Sensuality", "It's Oh So Quiet", "Possibly Maybe", and "Hunter".
Why spend the extra money and buy the Import version? It includes a bonus disc featuring two of Bjork's very best videos from the Homogenic album not included on Volumen: "All Is Full Of Love" and "Alarm Call". Although the former is available as a separate DVD single, the latter "Alarm Call" has never previously been released on DVD--and it is without a doubt one of the most beautiful videos EVER made! And it's almost as if special attention went into the bonus disc because the transfers are strikingly gorgeous for both videos, especially "Alarm Call", with its vibrant greens and perfect blacks.
Nowadays it seems as if a video is only made with the sole purpose of getting as much rotation on MTV as possible and therefore increase sells of the album. But there are still plenty of artists and directors that think that videos can have an inmense creative ingredient and therefore complement what should be a good song. An example of such an artist is Björk and an exaple of such directors are Michel Gondry (personally the best video director in the world), Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningam and Stéphane Sednaoui.6 Michel Gondry videos is something that could sound surprising but actually it isn't. After all, chances are that Björk and Michel are where they are now thanks to each other. The first product of that relation between the 2 was "Human Behaviour". A video that was acclaimed world wide and moved Michel into the spotlight. This video is supposed to be the first part of a 3 part "drama" which is supposed to be followed by "Isobel" and "Bacherlorette". "Bacherlorette" is a very interesting video as it's a story that re-tells itself on the stage but every time in a smaller stage. Another of Michel's videos is "Hyperballad". The first few times I saw the video I didn't like it much but then I changed my opinion. If you look carefully to the background lighting you see how he makes the music "visual". As for "Joga", the video is absolutely beautiful. It's made mostly out of icelandic landscapes but very nicely done. In "Army of me" Michel adds some of the story-type background that he uses in Human Behaviour and Bacherlorette adding some very peculiar characters (the final part of the video was banned in many parts of the world BTW).
Another director that I deeply admire is Spike jonze. I'm sure everybody here has seen "Sabotage" with the Beastie Boys or "Da Funk" from Daft Punk. But that creativity is still there with "It's oh so quiet". This video is absolutely superb. I guess you could say that the scenes could seems somewhat ridicolous, even compared to the likes of "Da Funk" and even for a musical (a dancing mailbox doesn't make any sense), but make no mistake, it's all part of what makes that video so great. And the change of speed according to the song it superb.
Chris Cunningham on the other hand is known for producing "darker" videos. You'll probably remember him from "Come to daddy" by Aphex Twin. But in "All is full of love" he really outdones himself. The video is sublime, suggestive, sensual, provocative.....it's extremely cold but at the same time so full of feeling, so much sensuality and passin in a sterile enviroment between steril beings. I still recall that the first time I watched the video I stood there breathless (literally) even after it ended. No wonder that he says that this is his favourite video.
As for Stéphane, he has 2 videos here. One being "Big Time Sensuality". The video is extremely simple but it's fantastic. It's just Björk in the back of a truck going trough downtown New York, black and white and with some changes of speed. But the video is fantastic. On "Possibly maybe" however, he takes a different approach trying to portray scenes of the lyrics of the song but very well done indeed.
And how could one forget Spumco?? Many of you have surely watched Ren & Stimpy. Those cartoons are very peculiar, grotesque at times but, in my personal opinion, some of the best animations out there (not including japanese animation of course). And "I miss you" has all that animation. Grotesque at times but very funny. A couple of real scenes mixed with animation, some purely animated scenes and some computer generated scenes make up for this fantastic video, however, if you don't think much of ren & stimpy you might not think this video is so great.
As for the rest of the videos you have "Hunter" in which Björk morphs into a cyber-polar bear, "Venus as a boy" by Sophie Muller, "Violently happy" by Jean Baptiste Mondino (another very simple but very good video), Play Dead which could be the only "normal" video as it's from a movie soundtrack and Alarm Call.
If you either love good videos or are a mad fan of Björk then this is a DVD that you MUST have and if you're both then you should already be crying of joy that those 2 excellent things, great videos and great songs, can finally be found in just one package ;)
