FEATURE:
Groovelines
Björk – Big Time Sensuality
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THIS features allows me the chance…
IN THIS PHOTO: Björk in Los Angeles in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cultice
to go deep with a great track. Today, I wanted to dive into Björk’s Big Time Sensuality. A highlight from her 1993 debut (except for her actual 1977 debut, Björk) album, Debut, it was released as a single on 22nd November, 1993. Written and co-produced with Nellee Hooper, I think that Big Time Sensuality is one of Björk’s greatest tracks. Even though some feel that 1995 was a big improvement on Debut, I feel the 1993 introduction is a magnificent album where Björk’s voice and talent expands, flies and swoops. The songwriting and production is magnificent throughout the album. Placed halfway down Debut between a cover version of Like Someone in Love and the underrated One Day, Big Time Sensuality is one of the most joyous and energised tracks on Debut (sitting alongside Human Behaviour and Violently Happy in terms of the energy levels and pace). There are a few features I want to bring together, to give us a greater impression of a classic Björk track. One of the defining songs of the 1990s, I was looking for an interview Björk was involved with in 1993. This interview that i-D revisited in 2018 (from their original of 1993) is one of Björk discussing Debut and her music. I thought that it was useful sourcing some passages from the interview:
“Björk’s singing really doesn’t need any fancy qualifiers. God knows that music journalists are, even as you read this, probably scouring their already battered Thesaurus for suitably multisyllabic synonyms for the word ‘ethereal’. And while on the subject of journalistic prose, can somebody write an article about Björk without using the word ‘elfin’?
“I think it’s funny and actually I couldn’t be more pleased with the situation,” says Björk. “When I was growing up, I always had this feeling that I had been dropped in from somewhere else. That was how I was treated at school in Iceland where the kids used to call me ‘China girl’ and everybody thought I was unusual because I was Chinese. It gave me room to do my own thing. In school, I was mostly on my own, playing happily in my private world making things, composing little songs. If I can get the space I need to do my own thing by being called an alien, an elf, a China girl, or whatever, then that’s great! I think I’ve only realized in the past few years what a comfortable situation that is.”
Using dance music as the framework for her songs is a definite departure from the guitar-based pop that Björk has been identified with to date. This belies the fact that she has been a dance fan since the early days of acid house. From 1988 onwards, Björk could usually be found in various London clubs whenever her band schedule permitted. What seems an abrupt change of heart is in fact a long process of musical evolution that has finally reached fruition today. “Dance music is the music that I’ve mostly been listening to in the past few years,” she confirms. “It’s the only pop music that is truly modern. To be honest, house is the only music where anything creative is happening today.”
IN THIS PHOTO: For the Big Time Sensuality video, Stéphane Sednaoui filmed Björk on the truck for an entire day on 26th October, 1993 and drove throughout New York City.
Discussing Björk’s eclectic taste in music gives way to a deeply-felt criticism of the rock tradition: “I could never stand guitar rock. That’s the funny thing. My father was a hippy who just listened to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and I grew up listening to that music. When I was seven, I was convinced that this music was ancient history, that I would do something new,” she says. “I think that as soon as any form becomes traditional, like the guitar, bass and drums, then people start to behave traditionally. It’s really difficult to get a band to stay on the edge using the typical bass, guitar and drums set-up because it tends to lapse into a predictable form. My ideal band would be an open-minded group that won’t let anything get in the way of creating something new. They could use saxophones, teaspoons, drum machines or anything to communicate a whole concept whether it be a house track, experimental music, pop, or just a nursery rhyme.”
In fact, Björk’s disillusionment with the state of contemporary music was one of the prime motivations for her Debut. “This record is really about being tired of going into the world’s largest record store in the hopes of finding something fabulous, and walking out with, fucking yet another Miles Davis record because there’s nothing happening that’s challenging.”
So you felt that you had to make that music yourself? “Largely, yes. That was my impulse.” It turns out Björk is a pop star on a personal crusade. “I think pop music has betrayed us,” she states. “Everybody in the world needs pop music, just like they need politics, their pay, and oxygen to breathe. The problem is that too many people dismiss pop as crap because nobody has had the courage to make pop that’s relevant to the modern world. Pop music has become so stagnant. This is really a paradox because it should change and evolve everyday. I don’t think anybody has made a decent pop album in years”.
Not only is Björk’s music remarkable, unique and so transfixing. She also makes sure that her videos are as inventive, cinematic and memorable as they can be. The video for Big Time Sensuality is such an example. The black-and-white video directed by Stéphane Sednaoui is one of Björk’s greatest. Vanity Fair looked at the video in 2015. They provided some great photos from the shoot of Big Time Sensuality:
“Projected on the main lobby wall of Björk’s mid-career retrospective at MoMA is Stéphane Sednaoui’s “Big Time Sensuality” music video from 1993. Björk dances on an empty bed of a truck, driving through New York City. She shakes, shimmies, and scrunches her face to the music. “I love the Björk I filmed and photographed, I enjoy capturing who she is as an individual, I find her more captivating unprotected than when she is hidden under a shelter of beautiful layers”, says Sednaoui. The release of “Big Time Sensuality” propelled Björk's popularity in the States to new heights. Sednaoui shares his photographs and memories from that animated day of filming.
Sednaoui on the work he did with Björk: “She is constantly questioning herself and turned toward the future, it allows to potentially translate past projects into present pieces.”
“I was in a taxi stuck in traffic midtown, playing the song, and it was a perfect match. I added the idea of the flat-bed truck because I lived on 331 Lafayette and watched from my windows the flat-bed trucks crossing Manhattan on Houston Street,” explains Sednaoui, on how he came up with the concept.
Björk and Sednaoui blasted the song on speakers while driving around N.Y.C.; some New Yorkers responded by dancing in the streets.
Sednaoui had some of the young East Village crowd from that time—Kenny Hash, Walt Cassidy, Carlos Taylor, the Green Twins, Frederic Gaston—perform one by one on the truck, but decided to cut it from the video because Björk’s solo performance exceeded his expectations. “We had so much footage that Craig Wood (the editor) and I ended up making three different versions just with her,” says Sednaoui”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Stéphane Sednaoui
One can hear the chemistry between Björk and Nellee Hooper. They are definitely on the same wavelength right throughout Debut. Big Time Sensuality is a magnificent song that bursts with life! Mixing House and Pop, it is both euphoric and soulful at the same time. Big Time Sensuality was one of the last songs to be written for Debut. The song was originally planned to be the first single, but it got delayed by the release of Human Behaviour. Also, it was then intended to be the third single, but, again, it got delayed by the success and positivity that Play Dead received. Big Time Sensuality was released as the fourth single in November 1993. I am going to end with a Wikipedia article that collates the reception Big Time Sensuality received:
“The song was deemed as a highlight of Debut and was praised by critics. Reviewing the album, Heather Phares of AllMusic, noted that "Björk's playful energy ignites the dance-pop-like "Big Time Sensuality" and turns the genre on its head with "There's More to Life Than This." Recorded live at the Milk Bar Toilets, it captures the dancefloor's sweaty, claustrophobic groove, but her impish voice gives it an almost alien feel". The website cites the track as an All Media Network-pick, and in a track review, Stacia Proefrock defined it as an "aggressive, screechy dance number" that "While not scraping the top of the charts[...] was part of an album unusual enough to stand out among its fellow pop releases as a quirky and complex experiment that worked most of the time".
PHOTO CREDIT: Stéphane Sednaoui
Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "Wiggly bass and heavy beat come to the fore here, unfortunately competing with Björk's voice for lead billing, when her vocal really should be allowed to steal the show." Sean McCarthy of the Daily Vault defined the track as "insanely addictive". John Hamilton from Idolator wrote that "this dancefloor monster resembles the soulful American house sounds of Crystal Waters and Ultra Nate in its original album mix, but for the single, it was revamped into a storming trance jam by remix duo Fluke." Martin Aston from Music Week gave it four out of five, stating that it "sees the ubiquitous star this time going for the big dancefloor smash", adding that "she can do no wrong right now." Tim Jeffery from the magazine's RM Dance Update noted, "That soaring voice starts the track over swirling synths before a deep and rumbling bassline powers in and the rest is history repeated as Bjork heads for another smash." Simon Reynolds of The New York Times stated that "the sultry Big Time Sensuality has her vaulting from chesty growls to hyperventilating harmonies so piercing she sounds as if she’s inhaled helium". Johnny Dee from NME commented, "More fun, madness and surprise follows", noting "the pulsating grind" of the song. Vox journalist Lucy O'Brien called it "saucy".
"Big Time Sensuality" was nominated in the Best Song category at the 1994 MTV Europe Music Awards, losing to "7 Seconds" by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry”.
A truly phenomenal song, Big Time Sensuality has not aged at all. Although one does not really hear songs like this made anymore, the production and always-original sound of Björk means that it will not sound dated; it will never be forgotten. In the song, Björk talks about having courage but needing to find more. There is fear alongside positivity. She sings about living life to the full. Big Time Sensuality is an inspiring, affirmative and emotional song that provokes so many different reactions. It is one of dozens of classic and hugely impressive tracks…
FROM the Icelandic pioneer and genius.