Bjork is PISSED
i saw in the last issue of iceland’s newspaper in english : “grapevine” , that valgeir sigurðsson was credited for having written all the instrumentals for my album vespertine . could i please offer a correction :
i have noticed last 7 years that mr. sigurðsson has often been credited for either writing or producing that album . i´d like to say that he didn´t write it or produce . he was a computer programmer for a third of it and a recording engineer for a third . The other two thirds were done by other engineers and programmers .
here is the creditlist to show you the correct crediting of vespertine .
i don´t understand where that misunderstanding has come from
could be one of four options :
1 :the pop critics of this world have not totally yet worked out the difference between engineering , programming , writing and producing electronic music . visually this appears very similar . a man/woman sitting in front of a computer . not as different as for example a drummer , a brass arranger and an engineer . but these are 3 completely different jobs which journalists must start to see the difference
2: it could be that this is some degree of sexism . m.i.a. had to deal with this with the respected website pitchfork.com where they assumed that diplo had produced all of her kala album without reading any credit list or nothing , it just had to be , it couldn´t have been m.i.a. herself ! it feel like still today after all these years people cannot imagine that woman can write , arrange or produce electronic music . i have had this experience many many times that the work i do on the computer gets credited to whatever male was in 10 meter radius during the job . people seem to accept that women can sing and play whatever instrument they are seen playing .but they cannot program , arrange , produce , edit or write electronic music .
3 : i´ll admit that one thing could confuse things : people have to use their ears and actually read the creditlist to get this information . all the music i have made : like for example string arrangements , synthbasslines or programming of electronic patterns , i never play myself live because i want to give 100% of myself into the singing i either ask the computers to play it or i get other musicians to play it . this could confuse things .
4: one thing that could have kept this misunderstanding alive is that neither me nor valgeir sigurðsson have bothered to correct it
but i am doing it now
i hope this correction will be a positive input into more discussion about this
warmth
björk.
p.s. just read that pitchfork.com credited nico muhly for the choir arrangement of “hidden place” from vespertine . also that he has done string arrangements for me . this is not true . journalists : please read the creditlist before you write your articles
