SUGARCUBES'  SWEET-AND-SOUR  ROCK  THE  ICELANDIC  BAND  IS COOL ABOUT WHAT
OTHERS THINK OF ITS MUSIC
Boston Globe (BG) - TUESDAY, April 14, 1992
By: Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff
Edition: THIRD  Section: LIVING  Page: 53
Word Count: 765

TEXT:
The  Sugarcubes  - quite likely the only sexy, dissonant, playful Icelandic
rock  'n'  roll  band  to  have  ever  mattered in a global context -- have
recently  released their genre-jumping third album, "Stick Around for Joy."
It's  a  strong album -- a confident comeback after their meandering second
album -- and it has spawned a topsy-turvy, catchy semi-hit called "Hit."

  But  consider  the  abundant  ironies:  Mainly,  was  "Hit" conceived and
crafted to be a hit?

   "We  never know what to expect," says Sugarcubes singer-songwriter Bjork
Gudmundsottir,  on the phone from New York, prior to a US tour that touches
down  in  Boston  tomorrow  at the Orpheum Theater. The 'Cubes headline the
Boston Phoenix/WFNX Music Poll Awards ceremonies.

  "In  a way, it's hard to analyze things like that," says Bjork, of trying
to  pen a pop hit. "Really, I don't give a (expletive). I mean, we're doing
our  little thing. (With) the upbringing we got in Iceland, a lot of people
don't  really  get  what we do, so we just do it anyway. If people like it,
brilliant. If they don't, well, they're missing something."

  Bjork and her band have no problem, either way.

  "I guess it's just our attitude," she continues. "It has to do with being
brought  up  in  a  small town with a small-town mentality. And you have to
say: 'I'm just going to do what I'm doing no matter what people think.' "

  The   Sugarcubes,   a   democratically   run  sextet  co-fronted  by  the
child-woman/sex  symbol  Bjork and ranter-raver/trumpeter-madman Einar Orn,
do not guarantee a smooth ride for all.

  Here's  Bjork on herself and her (sex symbol) role in the band: "I'm just
one  of the humans, you know? I'm everything. I'm ugly, pretty, big, small,
fat,  thin,  horrible,  delightful.  I've got everything inside me (that) I
think everybody else does."
  Here's  Bjork  on the dumbest of Sugarcubes/other bands comparisons: "All
the  Americans know about is the B-52's, and we're compared to them all the
time, which is really not fair -- just because there's something unusual."

  Which is fair enough: The Sugarcubes are a darker shade of quirky. Still,
that  something  might  just include the oft-agitated, fly-in-the-ointment,
much-blasted presence of Orn.

  "Outsiders sometimes find us a bit funny," says Bjork, with a laugh, "but
for  me Einar is just being Einar and if he would do something else I would
probably hit him in the head. Same goes for the rest of the band."

  "Life's  Too  Good"  was  the  irony-drenched  title  of  the Sugarcubes'
successful  debut  disc. The follow-up, "Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!,"
might  have  had the title right, but not the tunes. With "Stick Around for
Joy,"  the good/bad times return full force as the 'Cubes mix the sweet and
the sour, the playful and the harrowing.

  In the "Hit" video, Bjork and her mates appear as chilling dolls, replete
with  red/black/white  wardrobes.  "The atmosphere, the ideas and the basic
colors  came  from us," says Bjork. "We talked to the director and it's his
work  based  on what we wanted." Meaning a juxtaposition of the playful and
the eerie?

  "It's  a  little  bit  that  way,"  says  Bjork, "but it's hard for me to
analyze like that. . . . In Iceland, we didn't have any idols or traditions
--  there's no band that we liked when we were little, there weren't people
for us to imitate. We had to invent our own thing.

  "And  I guess we just express daily life . . . chords and stuff that were
basically  based  on a thing that happened last Tuesday when we went to the
cinema and a girl had a nervous breakdown. . . . I'm just making this up. .
.  .  But I think that's why I'm not the right person to analyze. Our songs
are  not based on musical tradition, or rock 'n' roll, or pop, or whatever.
They're  based  on little things that happen. And I think that's what makes
it a little bit like theater."

  That  sort  of  elliptical  rock  theater  --  where offhand whimsy meets
dramatic  intensity,  where  sensuality  dances  in the dark -- should take
place  tomorrow  night  as  the  Sugarcubes  close  the fifth annual Boston
Phoenix/WFNX  Music  Poll concert at the Orpheum, after the Smithereens and
Matthew Sweet.

  And what if, in 1992, people still feel the need to categorize their rock
options, define and refine their alternative rock choices?

  "That's  their  problem,"  says  Bjork,  with a laugh. "It's their little
brains playing tricks on them."
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