Björk Collaborator Has to Release Statement She Controls Her Own Music Because 'Guys' Are Stupid

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd | March 3, 2016 | 4:10pm

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For about two years, Björk has been working with Tri Angle Records, a London- and New York-based record label that releases the vanguard of contemporary electronic music. In particular, she enlisted the Haxan Cloak, a producer on the label, to work on Vulnicura, and asked the label’s founder, Robin Carolan, to help her “co-curate” Vulnicura remix series. Yet anyone following Björk’s career even cursorily knows that her vision is always entirely her own, and she also produces her own music even when collaborating with others.

Apparently, an almost 40-year career (her first album, Björk, was released in 1977, when she was 12) isn’t enough for some men to believe that she does her own music. Today Dazed points out that Robin Carolan has released a statement clarifying that yes, Björk is in fact “in charge of her own music… Guys (and it’s always guys) need to understand this.”

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Two of Carolan’s tweets seemed to lead up to this statement, including one declaring that he was asked “twice this week if @bjork is really in charge of her own records. To clarify, she is always and will ALWAYS be the boss.”

Björk most certainly does not need defending. But the scenario begs the question: If people don’t think she is in control of her output—Björk Guðmundsdóttir, child singing prodigy, member of one of the most seminal alt rock bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s and woman who grew up to release eight visionary solo albums, almost all of them featuring her own production—then what hope is there for everyone else to be treated fairly within a music industry set up to short-shrift us? The rampant sexism about women’s contributions, especially within the electronic world is virulent to a truly absurd nadir. It is, quite simply, dumb as fuck.

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