10. Biophilia - BjorkThere's a lot of white noise that surrounds an album release by Icelandic songstress Bjork these days. Coming along with this one was a different iPad app for every song. There was chatter about the different instruments she utilized for the making of the album, including a gamelaste, a pipe organ that was played through pushing buttons on the aforementioned iPad, and, oh yeah, a mutha flippin' Tesla coil. There were the concerts, in which she rocks a wig that looks like a massive twist of cotton candy and, to my eyes at least, struggles with the unpredictability of using a Tesla coil as one of the main instruments for several of your songs. Here is the thing though: if you listen to the album, none of this stuff matters. It's there in the dancing chimes and wailing drum-and-bass that is "
Crystalline." It's there in the chaotically playful sound experiment, "
Hollow," and the more delicate
Vespertine throwback "
Virus." It's there in the organ-and-percussion blast of rousing beatfest "
Mutual Core." And always there is that voice, the one that in album closer "
Solstice" is proven to be perhaps the least innovative instrument on the album, but also the most valuable.