VESPERTINE

It seems incredibly now, but at the time of VESPERTINE's release, the same critics who pronounced HOMOGENIC a masterpiece uniformly found VESPERTINE a disappointment. In truth, while HOMOGENIC was on the cutting-edge of electronic music at the time, VESPERTINE did not depart from the earlier sound, and many critics, who had witnessed Bjork's constant reinventions and leaps of development, felt disappointed that she didn't keep up with the pace of IDM's developments. But so what? She had found herself and was at the peak of her artistry, and this album is clearly riding that crest.

Her patented amazing singles are here, like Pagan Poetry, Hidden Place and Cocoon. But the non-singles are just as rewarding, such as It's Not Up to You and Undo. Both this album and HOMOGENIC are an amazing one-two punch, the very top of Bjork's achievements, and in many ways the end of an era. While her subsequent albums grew even more experimental, the magic of her first 4 albums (5 if you count the great soundtrack DANCER IN THE DARK, released in between HOMOGENIC and VESPERTINE) was over.

How are her first four albums not 5 stars?