Utopia Tracklist
Utopia is Björk’s tenth studio album, and is a direct parallel to her last project, Vulnicura. With a more positive vibe, Utopia refers to a utopian fantasy rather than a dystopian vision, focusing on finding solutions for the current state of the world.
Explained to Dazed Magazine back in September 2017, Björk mixes the themes of love and personal hardships with political and environmental dilemmas that happened throughout the writing process of the album:
Maybe that’s why it became a utopian theme – if we’re going to survive not only my personal drama but also the sort of situation the world is in today, we’ve got to come up with a new plan. If we don’t have the dream, we’re just not going to change. Especially now, this kind of dream is an emergency.
The bulk of the project was handled by Björk, alongside fellow artist Arca. The inspiration came whilst they were wrapping up the production for Vulnicura; Björk wanted to do the whole record with Arca rather than involve her at the end. As a result, this is also the first album where Björk has collaborated with one particular artist all the way through an entire record.
The first news of the album came from Björk herself during her pre-taped acceptance speech for International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brit Awards. Since then, she teased another album in several interviews before officially announcing one on August 2nd 2017 with a handwritten note on her social media accounts.
The lead single from the album “The Gate” was surprise released in September, followed by “Blissing Me” in November, with several track titles and lyrics teased in interviews in between.
“Utopia” Q&A
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Why did she call it 'Utopia'?
When premiering the video for “The Gate”, Björk was interviewed by Nowness, where she revealed the album title and discussed why she chose it:
I have had thousand name suggestions and I think it’s gonna be called ‘Utopia’. I can’t think of anything better! If I change my mind five minutes before the album cover goes into print, that might happen [changing the album title]. I kind of like the fact that it’s a cliché, that word […] it has a fascistic, ‘I want the world to be like this!’ feeling about it, because it’s a proposal (of) how we can live with nature and technology in the most optimistic way possible. We have Trump, we have Brexit, we have our issues in Iceland, we have our environmental issues. I think if there ever was urgency or necessity to come up with another utopian model, how we’re gonna live our lives, I think it’s now. And this is my proposal, mine and Alejandra’s.
In an interview with Icelandic website Grapevine, she further said that the album not only consists of happy songs, otherwise she would have called it ‘Paradise’:
If it were just happy songs, I would have called the album ‘Paradise’ or something. Yes, there are moments that are very euphoric and happy, but then there is also—like in all sci-fi films and stories that humans have made about the perfect place—that moment when two thirds into the story, the tail of a dinosaur knocks on your door and you have to deal with it.
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Are there any songs that were cut from the album?
Björk mentions a song called “Allow” in her Dazed Autumn 2017 interview. Whilst it is possible the track was renamed before the album was released, Björk said of it:
We [Björk and Arca] had a lot of holidays together. We got Airbnbs in the Caribbean. We’d walk in the jungles, recording birds. The lyrics are very much like that. Just us, swimming in the ocean for days. On day nine, that song just happened.
