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Amazon.co.uk Review
Laurie Anderson is something of a missionary. Having endured the scorn of some influential avant-garde peers for "selling-out" (by signing to a major label and taking her live shows to a relatively large, mainstream audience), Anderson instead chose to challenge their assumptions, proving by default that they were as ossified as anything in the so-called mainstream. Anderson also chose not to define herself strictly as an artist, but as a storyteller/de facto humorist--and one that dared point out that her chosen venue of "performance art" wasn't particularly avant at all. Or that the dreaded cliché was often merely the most efficient way to make a story point. This generous double-disc anthology charts the arc of Anderson's adventurous "mainstream" recording career, from the minimalist, unlikely Euro-hit "O Superman" through 15 years of ever more ambitious studio recordings and live shows. Tellingly, as Anderson's ambitions and acceptance grew, so did her playful warmth and often self-deprecating humour. Indeed, much of this set is an implicit jab at the implicit elitism of the so-called avant-garde--or is it their jealousy? --Jerry McCulley
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Laurie Anderson is one of the most genuinely distinctive voices in modern music. Unlike most of her contemporaries she is not willing to scrape a living on the periphery from various grants. Instead she takes her vision into the mainstream without compromising or weakening her stance. It is surprisingly accessable. The set opens with the studio version of O Superman (I would have prefered the warmer live version). This was the moment that Laurie took her vision into the heart of the UK pop charts. It is not representative of her work as a whole, but is still probably one of the most imaginative records ever to make the top five. This set spans seven albums and all are generously represented here. The tracks are well selected and flow well as a set. There are, of course, numerous highlights. Big Science, Sharkey's Day, So Happy Birthday, Language is a Virus, Strange Angels and Love Among the Sailors just to name a few.
Laurie's supreme acheivment is, and will probably remain, the massive United States Live (though it is about time that they lowered the price of that masterwork to more affordable levels). Her first three albums are merely capabable echoes of that. By the time she got to Strange Angels, however, she started to move on. But she her style is, at the core, still there. The set concludes with the wonderful story telling of The End of the World.
Laurie's supreme acheivment is, and will probably remain, the massive United States Live (though it is about time that they lowered the price of that masterwork to more affordable levels). Her first three albums are merely capabable echoes of that. By the time she got to Strange Angels, however, she started to move on. But she her style is, at the core, still there. The set concludes with the wonderful story telling of The End of the World.
The presentation is beautiful. With two digipacks and a very imformative booklet held inside an outer jacket.
Format:Audio CD
Like most, my introduction to Laurie Anderson was through the hauntingly strange but beautiful O!, Superman, which I bought as 45rpm single. Everybody else I knew (parents, for example! hated it, they almost believing it was sending telepathic messages through its eerie monotonous backing, to their impressionable teenage son.... which, of course, made me love it even more.
Big Science remains my favourite piece from Ms Anderson. Something with a tangible message, wrapped up with ambience and a melancholic, slightly sinister beauty. From there on in, tracks become more experimental and less easy to grasp.
I've always appreciated that Laurie isn't out to produce commercial material and hats off to how she's re-inventing herself, in the true artist's sense and she's always exploring ways to incorporate and encompass her multi-instrumental abilities, her poetry and also that her photography and installation art that she produces have an influence on. Having said that, a lot of the time, I'm just not on her wave-length and maybe because she's taking the American (which she is, of course) slant and taking oblique perceptions on a culture that I'm not familiar with. Unfortunately, however much I try, I'm just not overly induced to try to, either.
The product is beautifully put together, the colour booklet especially. I don't regret buying it but for those looking to sample Ms Anderson on the back of her singles, I'd suggest the Big Science album.
Big Science remains my favourite piece from Ms Anderson. Something with a tangible message, wrapped up with ambience and a melancholic, slightly sinister beauty. From there on in, tracks become more experimental and less easy to grasp.
I've always appreciated that Laurie isn't out to produce commercial material and hats off to how she's re-inventing herself, in the true artist's sense and she's always exploring ways to incorporate and encompass her multi-instrumental abilities, her poetry and also that her photography and installation art that she produces have an influence on. Having said that, a lot of the time, I'm just not on her wave-length and maybe because she's taking the American (which she is, of course) slant and taking oblique perceptions on a culture that I'm not familiar with. Unfortunately, however much I try, I'm just not overly induced to try to, either.
The product is beautifully put together, the colour booklet especially. I don't regret buying it but for those looking to sample Ms Anderson on the back of her singles, I'd suggest the Big Science album.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Laurie Anderson's Greatest Hits 81-95
19 Oct 2000
Format:Audio CD
What's crystal clear, very bright yet often dark, and goes 70 MPH ? Laurie Anderson's Anthology "Talk Normal" playing in my car. Oh boy, right again. This package is an overview of LA's career under Warner Brothers with a mixture of studio and live tracks. It ends with material from her 1995 Nerve Bible Tour, so fans (like me) who have been kept waiting and waiting for her current label, Nonesuch Records, to release material from her 1999/2000 Moby Dick Tour are, well, still waiting. There's a little sentence in the thoughtful full-color booklet that comes with this collection which says that "Laurie Anderson's new album with Nonesuch Records will be released in 2001". Don't hold your breath since the info on rarely-updated website laurieanderson.com said it would be much sooner (and that website is NOT given as LA's official website in the booklet but rather a fan site is ! Weird...). However, "Talk Normal" is a very good linear retrospective on Laurie's career. In fact, a highly visible progression is easy to see when you listen to this album package from beginning to end. Much of the early work, especially the live cuts from "United States Live" are innovative but shrill. I avoided the fast-forward button as long as I could, then gave in. The first CD of "Talk Normal" is the reason I was not an LA fan in her early days (with the exception of "Gravity's Angel" and "Sharkey's Day", both personal favs) but it's important work none the less. Then we get into the heavenly "Strange Angels" with the second CD, which marks a less-experimental and a welcome and more "musical" phase of LA's work which continues through today. The second CD of this set is full of the music and poetry that modern LA fans like myself have come to love. The entire album was remixed and the producer was Laurie Anderson so this isn't just a repackaging job of old material by WB as much as it's a retrospective look on a unique musical voyage by the artist herself. The booklet contains lots of pictures and a study of LA's career through her albums. Yes, it even mentions Laurie's romantic interest, Lou Reed, prominently. For any fan of Laurie Anderson, new or old, this is THE definitive anthology in one album set. The remixes are not noticibly different from the originals (possibly cleaner due to modern technology). But I gave this album five stars because it sound great, I couldn't bear for my collection to be without it, and after all, it's Laurie Anderson.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Difficult Music
25 Sep 2005
Format:Audio CD
"Difficult Music" is a track composed by Laurie Anderson to introduce one of her song / stories. It's also an excellent way to descibe a majority of her work. She has never been a pop artist. So it's misleading to think this collection is a "greatest hits" retrospective. Laurie Anderson, the performance artist from New York City, has very few tracks that received radio or video airplay. Even when singles were released like "O Superman" and "Sharkey's Day", they were hardly soaring up the charts. Yet she worthy of this release for changing the way we think of performance art today and music in general.
A better description is an anthology of Ms. Anderson's works from her Warner Bros. years from 1981 through 1995. In that respect, it covers most of the essential tracks that were not just popular amongst her fans but shows the diversity of her work. True, "O Superman" is a fantastic minimalist piece that hit the pop scene especially in Europe. But she can go the other way too, like the comedic and carribean influenced "Babydoll" about a conversation with her brain ("He says, take me to your leader". And I said, "Do you mean George"? He said "I just want to meet him". And I said "C'mon, like, I don't even know George"!). Most of her works deal with the battle of the sexes and inability to communicate ("It Tango", "Laguage d'Amour"), travel ("Big Science", "Lighting Out For The Territories"), and oddities of life. As her recordings progress, we get the increased sense of fear creeping into her work. Fear from society's woes like war ("Night In Baghdad"), AIDS ("Love Amongst The Sailors"), and jealousy ("Poison").
The collection ends appropraitely with selections from "The Ugly One With The Jewels", tracks that were recorded live on stage. Not songs, but spoken stories of her youth and from encounters from years of touring accompanied with minimal musical background. Ms. Anderson has always considered herself first and foremost a storyteller. Her stories are always given a slightly artistic tweak and become introspective searches of who we are as people and how we relate to others. "Talk Normal" is a quality look back at one of the more creative and interesting recording and performance artists today.
A better description is an anthology of Ms. Anderson's works from her Warner Bros. years from 1981 through 1995. In that respect, it covers most of the essential tracks that were not just popular amongst her fans but shows the diversity of her work. True, "O Superman" is a fantastic minimalist piece that hit the pop scene especially in Europe. But she can go the other way too, like the comedic and carribean influenced "Babydoll" about a conversation with her brain ("He says, take me to your leader". And I said, "Do you mean George"? He said "I just want to meet him". And I said "C'mon, like, I don't even know George"!). Most of her works deal with the battle of the sexes and inability to communicate ("It Tango", "Laguage d'Amour"), travel ("Big Science", "Lighting Out For The Territories"), and oddities of life. As her recordings progress, we get the increased sense of fear creeping into her work. Fear from society's woes like war ("Night In Baghdad"), AIDS ("Love Amongst The Sailors"), and jealousy ("Poison").
The collection ends appropraitely with selections from "The Ugly One With The Jewels", tracks that were recorded live on stage. Not songs, but spoken stories of her youth and from encounters from years of touring accompanied with minimal musical background. Ms. Anderson has always considered herself first and foremost a storyteller. Her stories are always given a slightly artistic tweak and become introspective searches of who we are as people and how we relate to others. "Talk Normal" is a quality look back at one of the more creative and interesting recording and performance artists today.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Greatest Hits, No New Stuff
1 Nov 2000
Format:Audio CD
Although I'm disappointed that this collection contains no previously unreleased material, I am still quite pleased with this collection. Aside from collecting favorite pieces in one place, this albumn's main fascination and value is to listen to the progression in Laurie's style and voice through the course of her career. By the time we get to the tracks from Tightrope/Bright Red, it feels she's come full circle, finally coming back to (or perhaps just finally arriving at) the place she seemed to be trying to reach with her earliest work, before she polished her voice and story-telling skills to their current high level.
And it makes a great soundtrack for reading her biography, Laurie Anderson by Roselee Goldberg :-).
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