Not many artists wind up producing a second album that far surpasses their debut, but Bjork - once again - is clearly the key objection to this rule. With harder beats, more creative production and a wider perspective on the world, Bjork created a masterpiece that still sounds as fresh today as it did back in 1995. One can only imagine what was going through her mind as she recorded this album. Bjork not only changed the music scene in the 1990's with this classic album, she changed my own perceptions on music.

"Army Of Me" opens the album in grand style. This is a really good opener for an album, very loud, very brash and hectic. It starts off like an electronic crash, before sliding straight into a thumping bass and percussion. It's an extremely industrial song with mechanical styles and powerful vocals from Bjork. "Hyper-Ballad" is the first masterpiece of the album, and works superbly when juxtaposed next to the song it follows on from. Strings and electronic pulses sweep this song along and Bjork's lyrics about throwing things off cliffs are extremely visual and commanding. "The Modern Things" begins with computer-synthesized beats before exploding into a whirling concoction of chaotic layering of programmed beats. Not the best song on the album, but still a good one.

By far the most famous song from this album comes next, "It's Oh So Quiet." This still remains Bjork's only UK Top 5 song to date, and spent 15 weeks on the chart from November 1995. This song is a technicolor romp through musicals with soft and quiet verses which make way for outrageous musical bursts. Bjork's diverse voice on this song still amazes me to this very day and her complete disregard for anything commercial and stereotypical made this one of the most well-known songs of all time across Europe. "Enjoy" is up next and without a doubt my favourite song on the entire album. This song is more reminiscent of the first track from this album, yet it's heavier and more hectic with more industrial beats. A thumping, pulsating beat just assaults your ears as you listen to it. Bjork's voice is dark and almost scary. Not a song to listen to in the dark! Someone once described this song as like having your head stuck in a cement-mixer. What a superb analogy! The song gradually draws to a close after a loud and sharp horn on the 24th second of the third minute. It's just incredibly powerful, hardcore and atmospheric! Enjoy, indeed!

"You've Been Flirting Again" is a short interlude which makes way for the proceeding song. It's soft and quiet, very tranquil in stark contrast with the song before it. "Isobel" is another album highlight. This is, by all accounts, a masterpiece in music. Strings gently open the song before a tribal drum beat just appears out of no where, as if from the Brazilian rainforest as techno wizardry takes over and a deep bass infects the song. The strings before each chorus are incredibly epic and just open up the song. "Possibly Maybe" is a strange song that starts off like a telephone ringing. It's a sad song about a former relationship and the minimalistic nature of the song captures this. The chorus is strangely catchy as more layers are added.

"I Miss You" is a dramatic return to the dancefloor. It's an outrageous song with many musical influences such as a trumpet and crazy samba beats towards the end. Bjork's vocals are just free and carnal. A true highlight of the album, if not her career. "Cover Me" contrasts the hectic power of the last track in a song in which Bjork states, "I'm going to prove the impossible really exists!" And prove she does with a haunting and tropical beat. It's hot, muggy and sticky like in the dead of night of a rainforest. The emphasis and enthusiasm showcased in her voice is just downright inspirational. It's a short song which leads us into the next song wonderfully. "Headphones" is a brilliant song, if a little over drawn. At almost six minutes it's to be expected but the little electronic impulses that dart around the song totally make it an enjoyable listening experience. The crackling in the background and Bjork's vocals of "Oh, oh, oh, oh, ah, ah" in any arrangement just scars itself onto your brain.

OVERALL GRADE: 10/10

Bjork is a new discovery for me. I've known her as a star for far too long, and avoided her music because it didn't conform to society's standards and expectations. How wrong I was. Bjork Gudmundsdottir is truly a remarkable woman. She's a total genius and I'm not lying when I praise her as one of the greatest female artists of all time! There is such a wide range of music on offer on Post, yet Bjork manages to hold it all together with ease. This is one of the best albums that money can buy and one of the very few you can listen to over and over without getting bored of. Buy it now and discover just what all the fuss was about.


Bjork proves she's worth her salt.   March 20, 2000
Steve Ogden (Colbert, WA United States)
42 out of 43 found this review helpful

Artists who are worth their salt must grow. By that measure, Bjork is worth a lot of salt. She has yet to dissapoint me in that she refuses to stand still artistically. Yes, there is a definitive Bjork-ish-ness about her music, but I don't think she makes the mistake of making the same album over and over.

Her 1995 CD, Post, is a nice followup to 1993's Debut. In this album, some of the seeds she planted in Debut begin to mature, as she drifts farther from the mainstream and her Sugarcubes roots.

"Army of Me" I tired of rather quickly, but that's OK. It was the hit single after all, and typical of hits, it couldn't hold my attention long. Can't hold her responsible for that. "Possibly Maybe" on the other hand, which you've probably seen on MTV, I never tire of. There's a lot going on in that song, and the notes Bjork chooses are positively jazz inspired.

But I think the thing that hooked me on Post (which was my introduction to Bjork, by the way, in 1997) was the pure emotion that comes across in her music, and in her voice. "Hyperballad" is the one that really gets to me. The lyrics outline the story of a woman who walks to the edge of a cliff every morning, throws junk off, and contemplates suicide as she watches the items fall and strike the rocks below. The reason she indicates for this bizarre behaviour is that after that rather dismal start to her day, there's nowhere to go but up. Dark? Certainly. Sappy? Perhaps. But for whatever reason, I was emotionally affected by that song. But no matter the subject of the lyrics, it is Bjork's delivery that really sells the emotion, and what ultimately affects me. It's just nice that Hyperballad had something more to it lyrically.

There's plenty of good music on this one. There's the ethereal opening to "Isobel", which is orchestral and haunting in its beauty. I could listen to that minute and a half alone over and over (and I have). There's a Japanese quality to "Cover Me". This one was evidently recorded in a cave, apparently a result of an incident during recording the album when Bjork just decided to run out into the night in the middle of a recording session, sound men scrambling to drag some recording equipment out the door after her...you can even hear the bats in the background. Strange song, almost shades of Yoko Ono, but I love it. Nice, experimental stuff.

Granted, Bjork's music is not for the closed minded or musically timid. And I know I'm not the typical consumer sample -- I'm an artist at a game company -- but I find all her albums very inspiring. I usually have one of them on while I work, and I find I'm more relaxed and creative for it.

Bottom line, for creative people, or even just people who enjoy adventurous music that's a little out of the ordinary, Post won't disappoint.


I go through a list...   April 30, 2002
S. R Robertson (Oh Henry?)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This was my first introduction to the mysterious world of Bjork and is still my favorite. Aside from people's claims of it being post-pop or whatever, to me it's and adventurous mixture of triphop, string arrangements, curious electronics, and calm ambience. It can go from intense techno club journeys like "Army Of Me" and "Enjoy" (the latter being a lavish experiment and a particular fave of mine) to more meditating melodramas like "Cover Me", done to soft Asian instruments and such, or the last song which lulls you into sleep as the song's lyrics suggest. "It's So Quiet" is an amusing broadway cover and definitely worth checking out, but for my money nothing beats the best track on the entire album, "Isobel"...it's a spooky jungle-filled rainforest romp of bombastic music, which has Bjork relating her lust-filled tale of loving a mystified replica of herself. The distant whistling at the end is a nice touch. "Possibly Maybe" is one of the lighter meditative joints in the album, mixed with some Hungarian violins; "Hyper-Ballad" makes me feel like I'm jumping off a high cliff in the clouds, humming all the way down which matches the song's lyrics about suicide and a similar fantasy. And to think most suicidal music that drives people off cliffs is depressing, but not Bjork's. Her dwellings in love, desperation, etc. are always weird, upbeat, or uncategorizable. She is truly a unique heroine in modern day music.


Fun, well-produced, a bit lacking in great songs.   March 18, 2005
Angry Mofo
10 out of 23 found this review helpful

Bonjour, mes amis! I am le Professeur Henri de Mofou, of the l'Ecole Des Arts Amoureux, un Ph. D. in le fine art of seduction. In ma classe, you have learned much about this most intricate of arts. Ah, la femme, so capricious in her whims, and lovely as the summer's day! But I digress. Take out your notebooks, and let us consider la Bjork, a well-known artiste of, how do you say, "le techno." Today, we shall study her second disque, une affaire called, let us see...Post.

For those of you who came in late, let us recall l'histoire de Bjork: she started her solo career in 1993, with a disque entitled Debut. It contained both les hooks and les grooves in good measure, in le style de "dance-pop," but la force principale of the disque was la personnalite de Bjork. Yes, when she sang les chansons comme "Violently Happy" ou "Big Time Sensuality," she sounded like une femme in love, maybe not for the first time, but with that great ecstatic power of youth that lets one truly believe that an attractive stranger can really be one's true soul mate, heedlessly laugh away the obvious absurdity of this belief, and at the same time - and this is most important! - not really believe it at all! Ah, sweet youth! Yes, mes amis, our masculine cynicism is but a guard against our despair at being no longer young! And, though we have experienced much pleasure in l'amour, we have forever lost those days when a few words, a flick of the hair, a brush with one's hand, could mean the world to us.

And so, it would seem, are they gone for la Bjork. On her deuxieme disque, Bjork displays a far different personnalite. Yes, now she is une femme schooled in the way of the world! Alas, she now flirts without falling in love, she gets bored with her petit ami and leaves him, ah, she uses such vulgar phrases as "Give her some time / Give her some space." Sacrebleu! Yes, mes amis, she is older, experienced in the ways of love. Consider la chanson "Possibly Maybe," un single from Post. Ah, this is a track meant to be listened to in the cities of Europe! There are no distinct musical phrases, only an impossibly smooth, icily sensual cosmopolitan air, a sheen of keyboards as soft as pillows, and crackling, blunt drums. We might play such a track (I hope you're writing this down!) when we return home from Le Club with une belle jeune femme. Oui, you say, if la Bjork writes songs like this, then surely there is no way to win her heart. Is that not so, mes amis?

Ha, ha! Do not despair! Let us continue notre analyse! Yes, at first, it may seem that la Bjork has become cynical towards such gallant hommes as ourselves. But let us look closely at "Enjoy," une chanson in which Bjork acts overtly jaded, singing, "I'm only into this to enjoy." Do the dissonant bass and percussion sound familiar? Naturellement! This song is produced by none other than Tricky, that funky seducer who made whole albums out of getting sultry femmes to sing lascivious chansons with dark, dense trip-hop productions. Here it is no different, only Bjork is singing instead of Martina Topley-Bird.

I see you are surprised, mes amis! But in fact, we can make similar comments about much of the whole album. "Army of Me," which features a cold, aggressive Bjork performance, is a rewrite of "Safe From Harm" by Massive Attack. The bass line is almost exactly the same, and has the same sort of production. "I Miss You," though it has un tres groovy electric accordion sound, uses the beat of "R-theme" by Rhythm Is Rhythm. Critics praised this album for its musical diversity, but it seems to merely co-opt numerous then-popular production styles. Yes, for all the genre-hopping going on here, there's little substance to these tracks. "Isobel" has a sort of fairy-tale atmosphere, drenched in strings (and lyrics from Bjork's acquaintance Sjon, who I am certain is secretly in love with her), but there's just not much there; the strings come to the fore in one musical phrase, and tread water, as it were, the rest of the time. Oui, Bjork may say, "I'm going to prove the impossible really exists" on "Cover Me" (which is very similar to "Like Someone in Love" from Debut, with a harpsichord), but alas, the album doesn't. And "Headphones," the experimental closing track, is really a bit boring, is it not? Bjork whispers seductively, but there's just no music there aside from a little plunking bass.

Sacre Cerise! Yes, mes amis, the album does not achieve greatness, I am afraid. However, there is une chanson that does. On "Hyperballad," Bjork sings disarming lyrics about how she imagines herself falling off a cliff every morning in order to feel happier later with her love. Oui, her love! Here, Bjork is secluded on a mountaintop with the man of her dreams, with no need for the cunning intrigues of the heart that we weave in our cities! Thus does the purity of nature rejuvenate our long-dead emotions. This fine chanson is the most straightforward dance number on the album; after the second verse, that simple, insistent house beat enters, that beat that carries us so far away whenever we hear it at Le Club! And it is matched with beautifully clear keyboard counter-melodies, as well, and in the end, a melancholy, tender violin surfaces to gently bring us down again. Ah, would that all the songs on the album were like this! Would that we could be young again! But alas, our cries fall upon the silent face of heaven and go unanswered. C'est la vie.

That is the end of my lecture, mes amis. Go forth and conquer hearts, but remember, always be gallant, witty, and magnanimous! Au revoir!


Eclectic, Electrifying and Exciting   December 9, 2004
C. Heath (Seattle, WA USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

I was inclined to get a little more personal when I thought about writing this review for Bjork's sophomore effort `Post'. It's simply too moving and inspiring to look at it from a neutral point of view. Until just a few months ago, I had no clue what I was missing not listening to Bjork. Out on a whim, I decided to watch a few of Bjork's videos online, and I was almost immediately intrigued and hooked. Her raspy strong vocals and fantastic musical arrangements had so much emotion, power and conviction; I was completely stunned and moved. Within a month, I had purchased nearly all her albums and several singles. Now, I consider myself a true Bjork fan: one of those listeners who loves every single one of her tracks for one reason or another, and hears the beauty in every note the Icelandic singer belts out.

Bjork's previous album `Debut' was impressive. Despite it's originality or maybe because of it, critics (for the most part) agreed it was too experimental to be musically inspiring. However, after being eased into Bjork's style and uniqueness, critics and fans alike took to her follow-up `Post' with enthusiasm. It's no surprise: the album is more innovative, emotionally moving and contains more musical impact than `Debut'. I had no choice but to crank up the music real loud on my headphones when I popped this album in my CD player. There are so many songs that hit the listener hard here. It's difficult to single out only a few tracks; they are all divine. Having said that, here's a review of every song on `Post':

Army of Me: This is one of my favorite Bjork songs. Like many of her tunes, it took some time to grow on me. I love belting out this song when I'm irritated or upset. It's great for those emotional moments when you think you're going to burst. The moving baseline and harsh percussion give a real nice punch to Bjork's already aggressive singing. This is a fantastic opener for the album, and it showcases Bjork's talent for writing expressive lyrics beautifully. (6/5) <- this applies and is valid with Bjork songs :)

Hyper-Ballad: Another song that took more than several listens to impress me, ultimately, it can and will seduce you. The odd time signature arrangement throughout the verses leaves suspicion and uncertainty lingering on you as Bjork belts out her own insecurities in her relationship. She conveys longing and yearning so well in this song: it's heart wrenching, depressing and completely timeless. This is definitely one of her best songs. (6/5)

The Modern Things: Somehow, this song is relaxing. Not quite a dance tune and definitely not a ballad, it's very jazzy and soothing, with a shuffling drumline. I personally love the charming bell arpeggios in the chorus. She sings a lot of Icelandic vocals here, which make this song even more precious. Musically, this song doesn't have as much impact as others, but Bjork doesn't lack for vocal enthusiasm. (4/5)

It's Oh So Quiet: The best thing about this tune is the fun you can hear in Bjork's voice. This song was originally written and recorded in the 1940s, which is obvious when the ecstatic and upbeat brass instruments crash in against Bjork's voice. Amazingly, this song suits Bjork very well, and it's one of the most honest songs about the obsessions of lust and love I've ever heard! It just makes you want to jump up and scream with happiness. I absolutely love every element of this song: the glockenspiel, the brass, the playful screaming... it's sheer perfection! (6/5)

Enjoy: Looking at the lyrics for this song (before I heard it), I thought it would be soft and mysterious. I was completely wrong! Opening with a strong organ, which is quickly joined by a distorted bass, I was pleasantly surprised. This is definitely Bjork at her best: singing thought provoking lyrics accompanied by simple but powerful and often surprising music. The sudden trumpet notes are a wonderful touch! This song seems to take me over; I can't help but dance to it when I hear it. It's got a very infectious beat. (5/5)

You've Been Flirting Again: After such a loud and thumping dance track, this song offers a nice relaxing mood. By this point on the album, I really began to realize how eclectic the music is. Nothing sounds the same, but yet, everything meshes so well. No percussion, just Bjork and lush string melodies (which she composed by the way) flowing beautifully throughout this tune. This is a shorter song, which is probably good, because it's very repetitive. However, Bjork never sings words the same way twice, so it works. It's hopeful, but it almost makes me cry hearing it. (4/5)

Isobel: The gorgeous strings from the previous track flow right into this song. The musical arrangement here is absolutely stunning: sweeping strings, a trumpet solo and then falling right into a drum loop that sounds like something from a jungle. There's a primitive quality about this song that I can't describe how I'd like to. Words just don't do it justice. Later in the song, Bjork takes all the elements from the introduction and successfully combines them. I love the chorus; it's filled with so much raw emotion! This is a big standout on `Post'. (6/5)

Possibly Maybe: I could listen to this song for hours, just lounging around my room. It's very unique with its telephone ringing and guitar slides. This song builds verse by verse, and Bjork's hurt and wonder are very evident. Uncertain, unhappy and longing for honesty, this is one of Bjork's most painful tracks ever. I can't help but feel sorry for her here: she sounds so innocent and sweet. I enjoyed this song the very first time I heard it, and it hasn't lost any of its appeal since then. (5/5)

I Miss You: This is a nice pick-me-up after such a somber tune. This song has many wonderful elements in it, including bongo hand drums and jumpy saxophones and trumpets. There's a bit of tropical flavor here, which is very danceable and enjoyable. The lyrics are perfectly depressing (which is always awesome with Bjork)! Towards the end, Bjork wails and lets out a playful scream. When I heard that, I just went ballistic, it was so great! After the conclusion of this song, you feel like you've had a nice ride emotionally. (5/5)

Cover Me: Simple and almost heavenly, I love the dulcimer and harpsichord solos in this piece. Electronic echoes seem to tease the lingering notes Bjork sings; the compliments between instruments and vocals are beautiful. This is another short song, but it's touching and heartfelt nonetheless. I always feel like taking a walk through the woods after hearing this. It's inspiring in its own sweet way. (4/5)

Headphones: I'll admit; I wasn't too impressed with this at first. I found it weird and too long. But as the title suggests, you really have to listen to this on your headphones, preferably with your eyes closed and just leaning back and relaxing. Vocally, Bjork really shines here: her harmonies are warm and inviting. She sounds as if she's ad-libbing throughout, and I find that natural singing very intriguing. This song is really a wonderful piece of work, and although it sounds thrown together, I'm sure it took her forever to get it right. (4/5)

What's interesting about `Post' is that, from beginning to end, it seems to wind down. I absolutely love this album, but it sounds like Bjork was getting tired toward the end. Strangely enough, that isn't a downer; the songs are put together in a way that just makes you want to kick back and chill out with her, as opposed to going `where's the rest of the great stuff?'. Everything here is fantastic, whether it's upbeat or not.

With this album, Bjork learned to open up a bit more vocally. She touched on darker subjects (longing for perfect love and not getting it in `Possibly Maybe') and had a little more fun (going crazy in `It's Oh So Quiet'). Because the collection of songs is so random here, and it's quite a bit stronger than anything on `Debut', I would highly recommend this album to anyone who is a first-time listener of Bjork's work! There's something for everybody here, and Bjork's vocals are strong and vibrant (but then again, they always are). The songs here touch on almost every possible emotion, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed!