Today, Bjork is considered one of the more creative ladies in music. To capitolize on that, she released two "best of" albums last year. The first was a one cd affair with songs which her fans voted on. The second, Family Tree, is a more deluxe affair. It has one full sized cd, the "best of" portion of the set, and five 3" cds.

The greatest hits cd were chosen by Bjork herself. Some of them match up with the fan-chosen stuff. Some of them don't. Twelve songs are featured. Some I recognized, others I didn't. Of course, as a Bjork release, these are all top notch. However, for the people who already own all of Bjork's cds, there is an added incentitive. The five 3" discs. The five cds are split into three categories. The first is "Roots" (discs one and two), the second category is "Beats" (disc three), and the last is "Strings" (four and five).

The first set features older songs. One is a song Bjork composed on a violin at 15 years of age. Others are old The Sugarcubes (Bjork's band before going solo) songs. Of course, the songs feature Bjork's trademark vocals so they don't sound too different from the rest of her stuff. Some of these tracks are rarities, some aren't so much.

The third cd, "Beats", are songs from her first project away from The Sugarcubes. A collaboration with 808 State's Graham Massey and Mark Bell (which lay the foundation for "Debut").

The last set is live with the Brodsky String Quartet. While it innitially sounds cool, it doesn't really sound that much different from the recorded versions. And typical live things, like audience noice and audience interaction are absent, thus eliminating that element of interest. Of course, they're flawlessly executed.

All in all, this is not worth the full $50+ dollars it costs new. However, if you find it used somewhere you might want to consider picking it up. If you are a hardcore Bjork fan, you will want this. If you don't own anything by Bjork yet, this is a good introduction. However, it gets a bit redundant if you already own some of her stuff. She should have added more rarities, more unreleased stuff.

peace.