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List Price: $39.49 | | Label: Import [Generic]
Salesrank: 650926
Released: September 29, 1998 |
| Our Price: $59.24 |
| Used Price: $11.99 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Debut Track Listing:
1. Human Behaviour
2. Crying
3. Venus as a Boy
4. There's More to Life Than This
5. Like Someone in Love
6. Big Time Sensuality
7. One Day
8. Aeroplane
9. Come to Me
10. Violently Happy
11. Anchor Song
12. Atlantic
13. Play Dead
Editorial Review:
Japanese pressing of her debut album includes the UK bonus track, 'Play Dead' along with the Japanese only bonus track, 'Atlantic'. 13 tracks in all, including lyrics to all tracks . 1994 release.
Description of Debut:
Her first album following the breakup of the Sugarcubes, Debut is Icelandic trickster Björk's statement of purpose: bringing curious experimentalism to the dance floor and putting her startling, expressive voice front and center. Her perspective is a little alien--it's no accident that the first song talks about "getting close to a human"--but her leveling of genre distinctions has some wonderful results, especially the eroticized easy-listening reggae sway of "Venus As a Boy." Paired with producer Nellee Hooper (of Soul II Soul), she comes up with a series of invitingly artificial settings for her pipes, built from late-night beats and peculiar timbres, and sings like she's overwhelmed with joy from all her senses. --Douglas Wolk
Debut Reviews:
The little pixie that could 
2009-09-10 - No one sounded like this little Icelandic chanteuse with the captivating voice, and strange but tuneful melodies, when she left the Sugarcubes and ventured on with this enchanting solo album... One minute churning out irresistible dance anthems like 'Big Time Sensuality' and 'Violently Happy', and next dropping the beat to a silently addictive 'Venus As A Boy', and then haunting us with her arresting wails on 'Human Behavior' ... disturbingly sweet
Hooray for Bjork!
2009-04-28 - The day the Sugarcubes broke up I was devastated. Then I heard Bjork was releasing a solo album and nearly wept with joy! This album will always have a place in my heart. Beautiful, emotional and fun, what else do you need from music?
Pomme
Dated debut 
2009-01-27 - 15 years later, this album doesn't come out nearly so well as later ones like Vespertine and Homogenic. There are only a few strong songs: Human Behavior, Venus as a Boy and maybe Big Time Sensuality. The rest display Bjork's unfortunate tendency towards shapeless melodies. And as far as I can tell there's only one arrangement/production that's still interesting, Human Behavior. The rest of Nellie Hooper's arrangements are dated techno and sound very tired and unimaginative today. Big Time Sensuality is the most successful of the many techno numbers here, probably because it has some shape as a song.
So really only one great song, a couple pretty good ones and a lot of dated filler. Not that auspicious a debut. The next three got progressively better. But don't mention the last two.
Great start, but not the Bjork we know and love now
2009-01-06 - This isn't the eccentric, avant-garde mistress of today, this is a younger woman who has discovered drum machines and outdated synths. Yeah, this isn't my first Bjork album, Post was, but it just makes me wonder at the shear evolutionary changes between the two.
Most of this album consists of trip hop beats and poppy ordeals; there are some great tracks, namely the singles, but aside from that the instrumentation is drum machine after drum machine. Just listen to 'One Day', 'Come To Me', or 'Big Time Sensuality' to get the feel of my meaning. (The video mix of BTS is so much better).
Either that or quiet, more organic instrument, tracks, like 'Like Someone In Love' or 'The Anchor Song', which are great, but her later catalogue shows that she is much more avid in fusing/shifting through genres, almost entirely without limitations in her imagination, but this album is an uneasy mix trip hop and soft ballad-type instrumentation. I think personally that most of these tracks are pulled off much better live, as I've heard them on Bjork's Live Box, which is really the only time I listen to some of these songs.
I'd have to say that 'Human Behaviour' will remain one of my favorite Bjork songs, in style and instrumentation, along with 'Venus as a Boy', and I think 'The Anchor Song' will be considered a defining artistic move in Bjork's entire career, but to me the rest of this album is rather tossable, as much as I'd hate to say it. I do like the bonus track, 'Play Dead', whether it's on this particular release of the album or not, but that can also be found on various singles and her 'Greatist Hits' mix, which might be a worthier purchase to get the best songs from this album.
Necessary listening. 
2008-05-20 - "Human Behaviour" was the first time I'd ever heard this woman's voice. Thank God for that happenstance. This LP folds you within it and you become one with the fibers contained.
