collaborations

I know the way you (Björk) have been working in the past has included many collaborations... Opiate, Mark Bell, Matmos,Graham Massey.... and some of their style has remained clear on your work, for example the beat from Cocoon sounds very similar to Opiate’s remix of a song by Tied and Tickled Trio, "t&tt meets opiate downtown ,remix by Opiate", with this i’m pointing out that Opiate can’t help being Tomas no matter who he works with. There are a lot of direct influeces on your work, a lot of songs sound very "Matmosy", or very "808-esque" etc...
So how do you rate that in a Copying scale ?

I take it more as a collaboration "you the collaborator and we’ll see what comes out" , but some friends of mine whom i’ve been discussing this topic thouroughly think you are directly ripping off some other artists style to sound more "unique" and "breakthrough" so it seems that what you are complaining about, is someone elses complain about your music... I find this very funny , sometimes it seems that being breakthrough and pretty much unknown is the only way to be respected by certain groups who consider them as "elite" in good music, once you get involved with someone more "known by the public" you are no longer valid as an artist.... nonsense.

Take care

Ps : again this is not dissing or being rude at all.
i have thought a lot about the fine line between the two in the past and i want to be respectful . i have 3 options as a "solo artist" .

1 : play everything myself ! which happens a lot anyway , because i write most off my stuff on my own , especially the melodies and the lyrics . so I have many months of working like that . but then i always arrive to a point where it seems too indulgent and lonely and the heart of music is about communicating anyway and i get overexcited about someone I find brilliant and I want to write with her/him . which brings us to ;

2 : if I like something to get a techincian to copy it and put it in my song which i have NEVER DONE and felt was totally IMMORAL . like for example when I fell for thomas knak , the idea of his music is incredibly distinctive of him and so so so him but it is actually quite easy to make ( which is kinda the genious of it ) and I could have so easily just copied it but never never never . I contacted him and asked him to be him and it says on the cd "thomas knak" so his work has his signature .

3 : do what I do . write on my own my stuff and if I want to work with someone ask them and if they don’t want to they can say no . but most of the time it is done with mutual respect and a lot of enthusiasm and we meet like equals , the unfortunate thing is that because i am quite well known people don’t see it as that ...

believe me , i don’t ask those people because i want a "breakthrough" , i know what you mean though , I don’t mean to ridicule you but if I worked that calculated I would be doing things differently . I ask them simply because I get very easily over excited about music and I want to play !!"

Bjork.com 4um, unknown date