Björk With a Cute Pixie Cut Photographed by Herb Ritts in 1989

Björk was born on October 21, 1966, in Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik. From the age of six until she was 14, she attended a local music school, where she studied the classics, and learned to play the flute and the piano. These amazing portraits of Björk were taken by photographer Herb Ritts in 1989, when she still was in the Sugarcubes.

h/t: vintag.es

In the mid-1980s, the Sugarcubes went from being independent Icelandic oddballs to, some said, the best band since the Smiths. And with their debut single, “Ein Mol Á Mann”, Björk suddenly came of age: That Voice had arrived.

With precocious little shrieks, and knowing, earthy growls, her exquisite, other- wordly tones wailed with wild abandon, seemingly fit to burst with impish delight. Underpinned by the menacing, beckoning rumble of Einar, Siggi and the crew, with “Birthday” the Sugarcubes created one of the few genuinely original sounds of the decade.

After six years of varying fortunes, the band which had been founded as a joke, had become very much a serious concern. “I realized that it was now or never,” said Björk. “Either I record all those songs which had been floating in my head for years, otherwise I’d never do it.” In 1992 she left the Sugarcubes to go solo.