Björk made her first album at 11 after a school recital aired nationally
When a young Björk sang a Tina Charles disco hit at a school recital, her teachers sent the tape to Iceland's only radio station. It was broadcast nationwide, a record label called, and at 11 she had a contract. Decades later she has sold over 40 million records.
Björk Guðmundsdóttir was born in Reykjavík on 21 November 1965. Her parents split after her birth, and she was raised by her mother, an activist who later protested a major hydropower project, in a commune; her stepfather had played guitar in a band called Pops. From six she studied classical piano and flute at a Reykjavík music school. After that first childhood record, considered juvenilia, punk reached Iceland and she ran through a string of groups, including an all-girl band named Spit and Snot and a gothic outfit, Kukl, in which she began developing her signature howls and shrieks.
International fame arrived with the Sugarcubes, whose English single Birthday was named single of the week by Melody Maker in 1987. Their first album sold more than a million copies, and Rolling Stone called them the biggest rock band ever to come out of Iceland. After they split in 1992 she moved to London and teamed up with producer Nellee Hooper. Human Behaviour, a dance track resting on a sampled Antônio Carlos Jobim guitar figure, became her first solo hit, helped by a Michel Gondry video, and Debut (1993) earned her two Brit Awards the following year.
Her solo records kept shifting shape: Post and Homogenic mixed electronics, pop and the avant-garde; Vespertine leaned on glitchy textures; Medúlla was almost entirely vocal. She also co-wrote a song for Madonna. With a three-octave range and a famously eccentric persona, she has scored 22 top 40 hits in the UK, including It's Oh So Quiet and Army of Me.
Film brought another triumph. Starring in Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, she won Best Actress at Cannes in 2000 and an Oscar nomination for the song I've Seen It All. Her honours include Iceland's Order of the Falcon and 16 Grammy nominations, and in 2015 New York's Museum of Modern Art devoted a retrospective to her. She has also campaigned for Iceland's environment.
Source: Björk
