Which is kinda how I myself felt back in '93, when I was a teen. The whole alternative rock bands, man!, thing was already getting tiresome by then. I got Debut back in '93, and absolutely loved it. It was just so fresh. There is a fabulous mix of electronics, a "real"-band combo that's bass- and keyboard-heavy, and Björk's once-in-a-lifetime voice (more of which later).

Then, what about the songs? About Debut (1993), Björk once said: "I kinda picked the greatest hit[s] of my songwriting... last 10 years or so... [written] all in my house in Iceland, after my son had gone to bed." She also said: "I wrote the melody for 'Human Behaviour' as a kid. A lot of the melodies on Debut I wrote as a teenager and put aside because I was in punk bands and they weren't punk." 

Finally, she needed a co-producer, and that became Nellee Hooper (after she first did some other work with some others). He went on to do some pretty mainstream music in later days, but back in the late 80s/early-90s he was known for electronica and trip-hop records. Voila! She was ready to go.

Okay, so let's run through the tracks on this wonderful album:

"Human Behaviour", which was Björk's very first international single in June '93, is a very good song. The fat bass grabs you from the first bars and doesn't let go. The lyric, by the way, is supposedly expressing humans from an animal's point of view. A line that sets the tone for the whole album, perhaps, is "There is no map"!, because, indeed, this record is going in any number of directions. By the way, this song has a loud and cool melodic riff that pops up a couple of times – it sounds like a guitar, but is undoubtedly a keyboard. What's a bit odd about this track, for an opener, is that it's mid-tempo. It kind of lulls you into the album. But nicely! 

The first bouncy, danceable track is "Crying". I was surprised, years later, to see that this song was never issued as a single (four others were), because it's very memorable and has a great melody. Another bouncy keyboard-bass riff propels it along, and we get to hear Björk's voice in full bloom for the first time, and damn she can sing! The chorus goes:

Crying 'cause I need you
Crying, I can feel you
Crying 'cause I need you
Crying 'cause I care

​

which reads as generic enough, but from this woman's magical throat it turns into a riveting noise that makes you sit up and want to pay more attention. The track ends with the age-old production trick of silencing everything except the backing vocals, and it works beautifully, adding yet another shimmering layer to this shiny musical cake.

Great groove, awesome melody, and Iceland's best voice. "Crying" is just fabulous.

You'd think you're into something very left-of-center as "Venus As A Boy" first hits your ears. The percussion sound is quite odd, and there's another fat (less tuneful) bass riff. Once our girl's vocal arrives, however, we feel we're in a safe place with a very simple, familiar harmonic pattern. It's another mid-tempo song, but this track has probably the best melody on the whole record (it was the second single). It's hard to dislike a song that starts with the line: "His wicked sense of humour / suggests exciting sex". But then the pretty and frequently-repeated chorus – "He believes in beauty / He's Venus as a boy" – goes all Hallmark card. What we've got here is a case of nasty verses and innocent choruses... which is somehow very Björk-ish. In the second verse, she tells us: "He's exploring the taste of her arousal". Oh yeah! 

Björk, by the way, was way-into Bollywood musicals and such in this period, and she apparently wanted "Venus As a Boy" and a few other songs to sound somewhat like Indian soundtracks. The strings, heard in some prominence on this track, do not sound very "Indian" in style to me, personally, but I'm far from an expert on that. In any case, they were (according to Wiki) arranged by Talvin Singh, in Bombay, and recorded by actual Bollywood soundtrack musicians. Vibraphone is here, too. 

Like all the tracks on Debut, this song is very well-produced.   

In the early 90s, one of the clubs Björk liked visiting was, evidently, The Milk Bar in London, where (according to the sleeve notes) "There's More To Life Than This" was "recorded live". This is a really funny, uptempo track with big beats and, not surprisingly, a dance-floor feel. That "feel" is enhanced by the narrative, which posits Björk as singing the song inside the club (which, seemingly, she actually did, at The Milk Bar – can anyone explain to me how that was possible?). Suddenly, she runs off to the bathroom, maybe, or somewhere just outside the club, and continues singing, with the "noise" of the song itself suddenly lowered, just as it would sound to you if you were there. She wants to get out of the club, you see, since it's early morning and "it's getting boring". She and her friend (you?) could steal a boat and "sneak off to this island"... but they'd have to rush back to town to get the baker's early morning bread. There's not really more to this song that this, but it's another winner – especially Björk's voice, as usual.

Then, a change of pace and a surprise. The previous track gently blends into the 1940s' jazz tune, "Like Someone In Love" (previous sung by Dinah Shore and Bing Crosby, of all people). What's more surprising is that Björk's take on it isn't all that different from Dinah's or Bing's. Harpist Ms. Corky Hale (a jazz musician) is the main instumentalist here, and yeah that harp just works a treat. The average trip-hopping popster singer could not pull off this song, folks. If anything, Björk sings with a lot of restraint, but still totally owns it. Did I mention she can sing? Nary a beat on this track, by the way. Mellow as hell.

"Big Time Sensuality" hit radio and MTV about the time Björk was touring the US and Canada, and it went kind of..., er big time (actually it was the "Fluke Minimix" that was the hit single – I prefer the original LP track, however). Everyone of age back then remembers the video of Björk dancing around on a truck in New York City: