The song was covered by Icelandic musician
Björk in 1995. It was released in November that year, by
One Little Indian, as the third single from her second album,
Post (1995) and remains her biggest hit, reaching number four in the UK and spending 15 weeks on the
UK Singles Chart. Fueled by the
Spike Jonze-directed music video, the single also shot Björk into the spotlight in Australia, where it reached number six. In the United Kingdom, the single has been certified as
gold, having shipped 400,000 copies.
Critical reception James Masterton for
Dotmusic said Björk's version of "It's Oh So Quiet" "stands out as one of the most bizarre singles she has ever recorded." He described it "as Icelandic pixie meets the sound of
Frank Sinatra to almost perfect effect." Alan Jones from
Music Week wrote, "Alternating soft and gentle passages with noisy outbursts on which Bjork squawks and is reinforced by an old-fashioned big band section, this is very much a
novelty, but one that works and well." Pan-European magazine
Music & Media stated, "The big-band-backed 'It's Oh So Quiet' is wonderful (didn't we hear this in
Altman's
Pret-A-Porter? It isn't included on the soundtrack album)." Simon Williams from
NME said in his review of
Post, "It happens about a quarter of the way into 'It's Oh So Quiet'. All is normal in Björkland in terms of mischievous whisperings and wandering noises for the first, ooooh, minute... and then, with nary a mumbled warning, out pours a 20-piece orchestral shriek, the huge scarlet drapes part insolently, and there She is centrestage, gallivanting down the crystallised staircase, shimmying with the choreographed puffins, bellowing through a jazz-tastic wartime standard originally recorded by a
Hollywood bombshell of the blonde variety,
Betty Hutton, and She is hollering
You fall in love, ZING BOOM! The sky up above, ZING BOOM! Is caving in, WOW BAM!." In her review of the single, Gill Whyte from
Smash Hits gave it a top score of five out of five, writing, "Uh-oh! Bjönkers is back! With a loonier-than-the-looniest-thing-ever-loonied choon! So, put on your loon shoes and tip-tappety-tap along, 'cos this is a redoing of an old Hollywood musical big band number, with lots of big, bursty, brassy noises, interludes of quiet
Ssh, ssh gurglings, and, just when you think it's all over, the Pixie From Planet Shouty screams her wee head off. Literally! Oh-so brilliant." Another
Smash Hits editor, Gavin Reeve, named it one of two "top destinations" of the album, with "
Army of Me".
Music video , and a homage to Hollywood
musicals.
Time Out wrote, "none of [it] would have worked without that final
crane shot" (depicted above). The music video, directed by
Spike Jonze, was shot in
San Fernando Valley, California. It is a homage to Hollywood's Technicolor musicals that drew inspiration from
Busby Berkeley and
Jacques Demy's
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, as well as Taiwanese director
Tsai Ming-liang. Like Demy, Jonze "mines the magical from the mundane," as he transforms a drab auto shop into the location where Björk dances and sings with a full dance company, an attempt to reflect the "exuberance" of her vocal performance. The whispered verse sections of the track are filmed in slow motion, "much as
Tsai's cinematography takes place over an extended timeframe"; while the shouted musical sections "reflect back on ordinary or 'lived' reality in a manner that denaturalizes the banal—turning it, more than the fantasy of musical spectacle, into something surreal." The music video premiered on
MTV during the week ending on August 20, 1995.
Synopsis The video begins as Björk emerges from an extremely dirty washroom in an auto shop. She dances along with the auto workers for the first chorus, then emerges from the shop. During the second chorus, she dances
tap with a few people outside of the auto shop. Björk continues to walk along the street, dancing with several elderly women and their umbrellas before settling to rest her arms on top of a mailbox for the final verse. The mailbox comes alive and dances along with Björk during this chorus. Björk then runs down the street and into the road, where the rest of the town has decided to join her for one large dance number. The video ends with Björk floating up above the townsfolk and hushing the viewer.
Awards The "It's Oh So Quiet" video received six nominations for the
MTV Video Music Awards for 1996 including
Best Female Video,
Best Art Direction,
Breakthrough Video,
Best Direction in a Video, International Viewer's Choice Award — MTV Europe, and
Best Choreography in a Video, winning in the latter category. The video was also nominated for a
Grammy Award for
Best Music Video - Short Form, losing to "
Scream" by
Michael Jackson and his sister
Janet. In October 2007,
MuchMoreMusic placed "It's Oh So Quiet" as number eight of the Top 40 Most Memorable Music Videos on
Listed.
Track listings •
UK CD1 • "It's Oh So Quiet" • "You've Been Flirting Again" (Flirt Is a Promise Mix) • "
Hyperballad" (Over the Edge Mix) • "Sweet Sweet Intuition" •
UK CD2, Australian and Japanese CD single • "It's Oh So Quiet" • "Hyperballad" (
Brodsky Quartet version) • "Hyperballad" (Girls Blouse Mix) • "My Spine" •
UK and Australian cassette single, European CD single • "It's Oh So Quiet" • "You've Been Flirting Again" (Flirt Is a Promise Mix) •
US CD and cassette single • "It's Oh So Quiet" • "You've Been Flirting Again" (Icelandic mix)
Charts Weekly charts Year-end charts Certifications Release history ==References==