Award Winning Artist Releases Single to Raise Funds to Fight Salmon Farming

By B.N. Frank

Apparently salmon farms are controversial worldwide. Fortunately, Icelandic protesters now have Bjork and Rosalia to thank for making a musical stink about it and donating proceeds to help continue the fight.

From Newser:

Bjork Releases Single to Fight ‘Frankenstein Mutants’

Iceland’s most famous star has put out ‘Oral’ to help raise funds to fight salmon farming in her home country

By Jenn Gidman, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 10, 2023 3:50 PM CST

Bjork is putting out a new single—but she didn’t make it solely to indulge her creative and musical sensibilities. The 57-year-old Icelandic singer is using “Oral,” put together with Spanish singer Rosalia and released Thursday, to raise funds to “help fight fish farming in Iceland,” reports Pitchfork. (Listen to a snippet here.) Specifically, salmon farming, the singer told the Guardian in a recent sit-down, which she says hurts not only the wild salmon that come into contact with what she calls “Frankenstein mutants” (i.e., the allegedly diseased and disfigured fish raised on farms), but also the ocean’s ecological systems overall. Residents of the village of Seydisfjordur have been protesting salmon farming in the name of biodiversity and they’ve run out of cash, so Bjork is doing her part to help them out. (The salmon farmers, meanwhile, deny the accusations of sick and mistreated fish.)

The singer had actually started on the tune two decades ago, but she then forgot what she’d named it and couldn’t find it in her archives. Her memory was triggered in March when she saw a news report about a scandal and saw the word “oral” on the screen. Bjork is unequivocally committed to this environmental cause. “Basically, we plan to be stubborn as f—,” she says. Despite the world’s woes in this regard, Bjork describes herself as “hopeful” for the future, based on what she’s seen among the younger generation, including her own children (she has a 21-year-old and a 37-year-old), nieces, and nephews. “These kids are all in university studying how to run a national park or how to sue fossil fuel companies,” the singer says. “I think that when they finally take over from the 80-year-old men who run the world, that’s when we start to see real changes.” More of Bjork’s thoughts on this here. (Read more Bjork stories.)