When exploring Björk’s eccentric public persona, she is sometimes best remembered for wearing her infamous swan dress at the 2001 Academy Awards. (It is no coincidence that her Oscars look was connected in some form or another to her fourth studio album Vespertine, which was released later that year in August.) To the bemusement of onlookers she posed mischievously for the cameras before “laying” six giant ostrich eggs. She was subsequent named one of the worst dressed at the Oscars, mocked and parodied by comedians in the years to come. “C’mon, you don’t bring eggs unless you want to take the piss, right?” Björk declared after the event to a UK publication, before elaborating further by saying, “I was actually amazed at how people thought I was serious…”
Unlike, her infamous (now iconic) swan dress, her attire at the opening ceremony performance of her song Oceania for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, was immediate hailed as a masterpiece of performance art. In recent years it was named the best musical performance in Olympic history. Björk wore an extravagant blue gown which unfolded like ocean currents over the stage. “I represent the ocean,” Björk said at the time. “And the idea is that my dress floods the stadium. It might seem strange, but when the [Olympics] art director, Dimitris Papaioannou, came to me with the plan, he wanted me to write a song that encompassed unity. I thought of the ocean because water touches every continent without thinking about race or prejudice or religion.”
Oceania was the final song recorded for Björk’s fifth studio album, Medúlla. While Oceania owes much of its acclaim and exposure to its debut at the Athens Olympics, we shouldn’t understate Björk’s emotional connection to it. She viewed it as a meaningful anthem unlike any other, which she hoped would unify people. The song is sung from the perspective of “Mother Oceania” looking over humanity with love and pride: “You have done well for yourselves / Since you left my wet embrace / And crawled ashore…”
There is no doubt Oceania is a fan favourite. Its otherworldly charm is wholly original. Musically, Oceania was constructed solely of human voices, a choir (The London Choir) and a beatbox. It cleverly mimics whale and marine sounds (one could even argue the sounds of a mythology siren) calling out through the sea. It is simply a triumph of Björk’s boundless creative energy.
0 comments on “Classic songs: ‘Oceania’ by Björk.”