In 2002 an Icelandic band, Sigur Ros, recorded an album that became known as The Brackets Album. The album was purposefully untitled, and the artwork for the album revealed a pair of brackets. Subsequently, each of the songs were also untitled. Jonsi, the vocalist, sang the songs in a made-up language called Hopelandic, which was based off the phonetic sounds of the Icelandic language (source). The pages of the album booklet were blank, encouraging listeners to create their own meaning of the songs. The album is often described as a post-modern masterpiece.
As is common with Sigur Ros albums, The Brackets Album, is emotionally evocative, with most songs slowly building to a crescendo of intensity. The album received critical acclaim, drawing praise from critics around the globe.
Considering that the artists were intentionally creating art that would be received in subjectivity, I find it interesting that we can still critique the album objectively.
While the album invites us to establish our own subjective meaning to the songs, it is through an objective critique that we can judge the aesthetic qualities of this album. We judge it according to how the listener receives the album, paying special attention to the depth of the emotions that are evoked (this gives us insight in the songwriting quality). We also judge it according the time and place that the album was recorded (we can’t judge it according the albums recorded in the 1960s, for example). And we judge it according to the quality of the audio recording and mix of each song.
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January 15, 2013 at 4:49 am
Katie O'Donnell
I’m judging this song based on how awesome it would be as background noise while reading/writing.
Thanks for sharing this!
January 15, 2013 at 5:47 am
Mohit kumar
Well i feel a bit embarrassed on how to put words for this humble piece of words and the simple words of this article justifies its critique.
January 15, 2013 at 8:06 am
slouraine
This is a really interesting example. Thank you for sharing!
The idea of trying to create something that is perceived in a wholly subjective way is really interesting. Actually, I wonder if it’s even possible.
Even if the language is artificially created, it must still follow the rules of what sounds are humanly possible to create (unless, of course, computer-generated sounds are used). And since it is based on the Icelandic phonetic system, though I don’t speak Icelandic, I will assume certain combinations of sounds have certain meanings attached.
One thing I’m thinking of is onomatopoeia. In English, for example, onomatopoetic sounds sounds starting with “cr” often indicate some sort of damage: crack, crush, crash. So if I were to come up with a new onomatopoetic word, “cronk”, might English speakers hearing it perhaps associate that with some form of damage?
So along those lines, I wonder if native speakers of Icelandic often attribute similar meanings to the same sets of nonsense sounds in these recordings.
January 15, 2013 at 3:49 pm
jeffreybardzell
It’s so important that people post examples on this blog, because through examples we can explore concepts. Thank you! (Also: this song is awesome, so that’s another bonus.)
January 16, 2013 at 8:25 am
raynezhou
I always like this form of art, which allows the listeners/readers/audiences to create their own meanings on top of the art, instead of guessing what the artists mean.
Also, a Taiwanese picture book writer called Jimmy Liao has once published a “notebook” named The Beginning. The notebook looks exactly like a hardcover book from outside, but if you look through the pages, you will discover this book is actually a notebook, with most of the pages blank. Some of the pages contain Jimmy’s illustration without a single word. I think this notebook is similar with the album here.
January 19, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Being objective in subjective art, Sigur Rós ( ) | iroots.org
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