- Band Name: Björk
- Record Label: Elektra/Asylum
- Release Date: Sep 19, 2000
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The music on Selmasongs brings Bjork's penchant for haunting melodies, cinematic imagery and ambient percussion fully to bear.... Though composed for a film, the music is 100-percent Bjork and may well be her best work yet. [12/2000, p.91]
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90Björk's airy and exalted vocals are wonderfully familiar. She may be singing as Selma, but Björk herself isn't too far beneath the surface.
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90For Bjork, this release marks a development in her craft.... SelmaSongs is a little big brave collection of songs that makes me feel better whenever I listen to it. [#201, p.58]
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80An excellent release, albeit a bit short.
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She may not have written the words, but Björk's emotional investment in songs like 'I've Seen It All' (really sad) and 'Scatterheart' (really really sad) is undeniable; making this album - 'in character' as poor, doomed Selma - totally seductive as A Björk Record.
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80It's the violently romantic finale 'New World,' though, that should see doubts finally stifled. Rivalling Massive Attack's 'Teardrop' in its breathtaking loveliness, it's among the best things she's done. (Oct. 2000, p.102)
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80One of the most exciting pop-music experiments to along in a long while.... Selmasongs works as an album, not just as a souvenir of a daring cinematic and musical venture.
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Bjork has crafted an album that is both intimate and theatrical, innovative, but tied to tradition. Though Selmasongs paints a portrait of a woman losing her sight, it maintains Bjork's unique vision perfectly.
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An appropriate marriage of industrial clanging and symphonic melodrama... this album, although short, represents a particularly accessible career highlight for Bjork.
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80In signature Björk fashion, the songs are emotionally intense, beautifully orchestrated, sensually sweet, and wickedly exotic.
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80Selmasongs becomes a deeper listen after you've seen Dancer In The Dark.... But even without its proper context, the album is evidence of Bjork's unstoppable growth. [Nov. 2000, p.197]
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Without the context of the film, the songs don't stand particularly well on their own for the purposes of casual listening.
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74Selmasongs breaks no new ground whatsoever for the Icelandic composer, instead dwelling in more comfortable regions already mapped by Homogenic.... the record definitely has its great moments. The problem is, there are only two of them.
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70Bjork-obsessed fans hungry for more of the songwriter's customary eccentricities might be disappointed with the brief and thematic focus of the album.
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The most notable feature of Selmasongs is how much it sounds like her most recent musical adventures, regardless of the album's intended cinematiccontext.
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60There's still enough synapse-jangling vocal invention and moments of great beauty to make it a worthy addition ot Bjork's singular ouevre. [Nov. 2000, p.99]
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The album has its charms -- Björk's voice soars on "Scatter Heart," and her duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke has a mambo-style sexiness -- but its overdone orchestrations and outsize emotions lack the resonance of Carousel and its metaphysical overtones or even the easygoing peacetime fizz of On the Town. [Sep 25, 2000]
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Too much dark and not enough dancer--textured passages that might sound great with luscious visuals, but are mere din from a cheap CD boom box.
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Something here brings out the most precious and irritating aspects of Björk's elfin voice.
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40A refreshingly old-fashioned orchestral score intercut with rather less appealing jaunts through an atonal avant-garde.
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