u/tpagaremos

Michael Gira, frontman of the band Swans.

He and Madonna briefly dated in the early 1980s in New York. At the time, Madonna was living and playing in a band with early Swans members Dan and Josh Braun.

As a massive fan of both, I’m spiraling down a rabbit hole trying to connect the dots regarding her track L.E.S. Girl; The song bio for L.E.S. Girl notes that it recounts Madonna's days as a Lower East Side girl experiencing a coming of age and falling in love in New York. In an interview with The Independent, she mentions living in an abandoned synagogue in Queens and breaking up with a boyfriend because he wouldn't let her be the singer in the band.

We know that during the early 1980s, Madonna was living and playing in a band with early Swans members Dan and Josh Braun. I am 100% convinced it is about Michael Gira.

Here is the evidence:

1. Danceteria connection

Take a look at the excerpt from Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore's memoir; He explicitly confirms the romance, writing: "Michael Gira was delighted, if not a little surprised, to share with us that he had a little bit of a thing going on with this buzzing sprite... Madonna moseyed over to where we all were to sit on Michael's lap". Moore later notes that the dalliance was short-lived and that they later drifted apart because they felt "too cool" for her pop music as she blew up into a global superstar.

2. Marlon Brando

In the Interview Magazine, Madonna openes up further about this specific relationship: "This guy I was dating who was a musician and I was in love with, was really an archetype. But I’m not going to say his name. If he had a Marlon Brando face, he’s hot. Who’s hotter than Marlon Brando?" If you look at photos of a young Michael Gira from the early '80s, he absolutely possessed EXACTLY that Marlon Brando archetype Madonna is talking about.

Knowing Gira's incredibly intense, uncompromising, and dark artistic persona, it makes complete sense why a relationship with someone as fiercely ambitious and pop-oriented as Madonna would be explosive and short-lived.

It honestly pains me to think about it. As a fan of both artists, imagining Madonna looking back decades later on her time with Gira with such a bittersweet, contemplative fondness, especially immortalizing it on a track like L.E.S. Girl, is breaking me.

Again this is just my dumb theory, and hopefully it'll land somewhere, loveee

I'm not that strong today

Current topster

I believe an artist alone can't really tell what your music taste is like. But in Björk's case, or rather, in our case as her fans, I'm curious to find out how most of you would describe your own taste.

In my case, Arca has gotten the #1 status on my spotify, dethroning Björk to 2. I enjoy her a lot really, and I find myself more drawn to her artistry. I think Arca pushes abstraction just a little further, and lately that's exactly what I've been craving. Another artist or rather a band I strangely find similar to Björk's ultimate creativity, are the Swans. You might have heard them, you might have not, but their album Soundtracks for the Blind is one of my fav finds. Totally fucked up, but I guess music comforts the disturbed, too.

Genre wise, it's mostly experimental & noise music and art-pop (kinda ?).

Some other artists I'd like to share (coming from experimental and noise music) are Sd Laika, Lotic (who Björk has actually collabed with in Notget remix !), and of course, Eartheater. To be exact, I hope y'all give Eartheater some love, in case you haven't already. One could argue that she and Björk share some musical traits or artistry around their world building.

What other artists, albums, or genres do you gravitate toward? I'm really interested to see whether there's a common thread between us, or if we all arrived here from completely different musical worlds.

Having this two sharing the same fate, it got me wondering if there was a reason behind this. Would be interesting though

What a shame really, television would be different

Yup, that’s the shit right there 🔥

Any 3 of her songs I will rank them based on personal enjoyment

Mods, be kind to me pleaseee. Sharing is caring! ♡

Her music, as it is, feels like nothing more than a gentle touch to my soul. She's there for me whenever I need emotional support.

But I can't lie: smoking has brought me closer to her music and to my own interpretations of it.

I can still vividly remember the first time I heard Pagan Poetry while stoned. I was in my room, overwhelmed and unable to fall asleep. It was late at night, so there wasn't much I could do to distract myself from my thoughts besides smoke a blunt. I put the music video on my TV and completely FROZE ON SPOT.

It wasn't until near the end, when she's wearing Alexander McQueen's wedding dress, that I started crying. I felt overwhelmed by how pure and all-consuming the love she was singing about must have been. I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of Pagan Poetry before this. It felt a bit outside my taste and not really what I was looking for from Björk. After that experience, though, I completely understood why so many people consider it one of her masterpieces.

But the best Björk song I've ever heard while high has to be Unison. "One hand loves the other so much..." ♡. I was walking back home from the park when it came on, and it honestly felt transcendent. Especially right before it ends, when the words seem to dissolve into her voice itself. It felt as if language had reached its limit and emotion had to take over instead. I remember just standing there, letting that final swell wash over me, completely forgetting where I was for a moment. It was one of those rare times where a song didn't just sound beautiful, Ι felt understood.

Other songs I've grown to appreciate even more are: Moon, Blissing Me, Come to Me (Vulnicura Live version), All Is Full of Love, Ovule, Hidden Place & Arisen My Senses (though they was already one of my favourites), Generous Palmstroke (Vespertine Live), and Unravel.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has had a Björk song suddenly "click" for them like this. ♡

Who the heck is the wheelchair guy supposed to be?

I usually am able to pick up on these kinds of references, but I'm completely stumped on this one. It doesn't really make sense to me that he'd be some relevant character to the story shown, so who is he supposed to represent in the story? Any of your theories?

Quicksand, and specifically this verse, is probably the most important thing I’ve acknowledged about myself, thanks to Bjork.

She is, once again, a legeeeend.

The simplicity of the lyrics: when I’m broken, I am whole, and when I am whole, I’m broken” speaks to me on another level, and I also believe to many of us. Because it’s really true, our flaws and negative feelings, really do complete us to feeling human and healthy.

++ “and if she sinks, I’m going down with her”, my favourite part. For me, it speaks like, if what I stand for is a complete lie, I don’t care. Let it be this way and I won’t mind, this support system I’ve built has got me through tone of shits in my life, and if it’s untrue to the general, I’ll simply die with it.

I get it, he's a bit of huge jerk, but his impact to the story has nothing to do with bigger names (Rhaenyra, Viserys, Alicent).

Despite its sound, themes and atmosphere, I haven’t been in a more comfortable place in a while.

This album has nothing to do with my music taste, age, etc, yet I happen to find a meaning behind it, in a more accessible way than I would probably associate myself with something more familiar to my taste.

Whatever I might be feeling atm, I know Soundtracks is more than enough to cover me, loveee 🦢

"The Bjork subreddit. All is full of love." and "27k Pagan Poets", "1.1k Loving Him" is just so, UGHHHH ♡♡♡

I feel like I'm alone at this.

I've seen y'all saying that we're all expecting her to be a bad queen, get called 'Maegor with teats', etc. With my experience of Season 2, that's not my case at all. For some reason, I'm 100% convinced they'll make her a suitable queen who does 'all-good' and ends up beloved by the public.

I've lost all faith in this series. I don't even know why I'll still be watching it faithfully on my HBO account. I just hope to make it through all episodes without loosing any more braincells than I've burned back in 2024. I just miss Alicent's arc...

Ngl, I've noticed that a lot of us complain about every recent patch and how each new season somehow ends up being a bigger letdown than the last.. fairly enough.

But with the Noxus season, that wasn't the case at all for me.

I remember watching all the Noxus teasers, alongside LeBlanc's trailer, and I genuinely haven't been this impressed by Riot's vision in a long time. LeBlanc's character gained so much more depth, Noxus itself has never felt more important to the overarching story (at least to what was visible to us and not what was going on under the table), and the buildup for the upcoming series has me convinced it'll deliver.

I also loved Riot's decision to make the gameplay reflect the season's lore. The map changes, towers, new game mode, champions releasing one after another, Atakhan, it all made the world feel alive and cohesive.

I'm genuinely happy with what they pulled off there. Hopefully, they'll be able to create another season like this in the near future.