Hyperballad

"Hyperballad"
Single by Björk
from the album Post
B-side
Released12 February 1996 (1996-02-12)[1]
StudioCompass Point (Nassau, Bahamas)
Genre
Length
  • 5:21 (album version)
  • 3:58 (radio and video edit)
LabelOne Little Indian
Songwriter(s)Björk
Producer(s)
Björk singles chronology
"It's Oh So Quiet"
(1995)
"Hyperballad"
(1996)
"Possibly Maybe"
(1996)
Music video
"Hyperballad" on YouTube

"Hyperballad" (sometimes written as "Hyper-Ballad") is a song by Icelandic musician and recording artist Björk, released as the fourth single from her second solo album, Post (1995). The song was written by Björk and co-produced by long time collaborator Nellee Hooper. It infuses folktronica, acid house and synth-pop. The lyrical content discusses a dream that Björk experienced, in which she wakes early before her lover and throws small objects off a cliff, watching them smash before returning to their bed. She has described this image as symbolic of the parts of one's self which they give up in order to make a relationship work.[2]

"Hyperballad" was lauded by contemporary music critics, who considered it the best song of Björk's career at the time. The song was moderately successful in the countries it charted in, including Finland, Australia, United States, Sweden and the United Kingdom (where it was the last of three top ten hits from Post, after "Army of Me" and "It's Oh So Quiet"). A music video was released for the single, featuring a digitised Björk running and falling from a cliff. Björk performed the song at the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert in New York, which was recorded by Sylvia Massy for Capitol Records; this live version was subsequently included on the second disc of the Tibetan Freedom Concert album released later that year.

  1. ^ "New Releases: Singles" (PDF). Music Week. 10 February 1996. p. 27. Retrieved 3 July 2021.
  2. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20070111104549/http://unit.bjork.com/specials/gh/SUB-02/index.htm [bare URL]