The album to start with
Big Science (1982)
It was the 1981 breakout O Superman that flung multimedia artist Laurie Anderson to No 2 in the UK singles charts and shortly thereafter into the arms of a record deal. After its instantly recognisable choppy a cappella intro, the track opens with a river of metronomic “ahs”. The instrumentation remains minimal, leaving Anderson’s voice to do most of the musical heavy lifting for its eight-minute duration. Despite the alien purr of the vocoder modulating her speech, O Superman is actually about techno-scepticism, written in the aftermath of a botched US military intervention in Iran.
It certainly doesn’t sound like the kind of thing major-label top brass would be knocking down your door for. But 1981 was a great year to be a musician embracing new technologies: Cybotron’s Alleys of Your Mind and Kraftwerk’s Computer World were just hitting shelves. Laurie Anderson, little known outside her New York art world, signed on for eight albums with Warner Bros.
What came next was Big Science, a definitive take on avant-pop that used singsong cultural commentary and the ethereal sounds of the OB-Xa poly-synthesiser to paint a timeless portrait of America on the edge of a technological revolution. Throughout the album, Anderson embodies different characters in American society, letting them speak through her processed vocals and satirically authoritative lyrics. Despite being firmly rooted in the sounds and current events of the 80s, Big Science has aged well. As her proto-ASMR vocals lead us through tales of American planes falling from the sky, the construction of drive-in banks and love fading to disgust, she conjures an almost meditative state. But screeching bagpipes, jittery timpani and sorrowful violin interludes keep full rest out of reach, implying that just around the corner from placation, something sinister lies in wait.
The three albums to check out next
Mister Heartbreak (1984)
Anderson described Mister Heartbreak as a journey into “the swamp” – her spin on writing an album about love. She moved towards more organic sounds for her second release by mixing the howls of dogs, frogs and birds in with the deep hum of her Synclavier II. Where most of the material on Big Science was recycled from previous performance pieces, the songs on Mister Heartbreak were made to be an album – one bookended by dramatic accounts of a day in the life of a grocery cashier named Sharkey (the concluding one read by her close friend, William Burroughs). It maintains her trademark hypnotic minimalism while offering more in the way of melody, and sees Anderson coming into her own as a musician while staying true to her home in the downtown NYC art world.
Homeland (2010)
In 2010’s Homeland, Anderson once again casts herself as a magnifying glass for America’s absurdities. Produced in collaboration with long time creative counterpart Roma Baran and husband Lou Reed, the record was written about and comments on the hubris underpinning the 2008 financial crash: “Just because all your friends were fired / And your family’s broke and we didn’t see it coming / Doesn’t mean that we were wrong,” she declares on the comically buoyant Only an Expert. To emphasise the album’s more pointed commentary, she doubled down on her practice of “audio drag”, using different processing techniques to lower her voice and assume a male alter ego that speaks as “the voice of authority”. By personifying America’s capitalist myths and avoiding sloganeering, Anderson leaves space for the listener to come to their own conclusions.
Strange Angels (1989)
Coming in hot after a year of singing lessons, Strange Angels sees Anderson swapping her signature sprechgesang for full-blown song. She wanted to replace her reputation as a contrarian performance artist with that of a sellable pop star, and Strange Angels is more commercial than previous works, embracing more conventional melodies and featuring a rovust studio band. Yet unfortunately for Warner Brothers, all the commercial padding in the world couldn’t hide Anderson’s eccentricities. She growls like Satan on The Day of the Devil; Babydoll provides a singalong anthem for introverts and loners, while Beautiful Red Dress spars with the gender pay gap. Always a fascinating curator of collaborators, Anderson elicits vocal guest turns from Bobby McFerrin, Meat Loaf and NYC siblings the Roches, piano from avant-garde composer Gene Tyranny, and artwork from Robert Mapplethorpe.
One for the heads
Born, Never Asked / It’s Cold Outside (1978 / 1981)
Buried between lilting stings and fuzzy vocals in this collection of Anderson’s first ever compositions are the seeds of what would eventually grow into songs Let X=X, O Superman, and Born, Never Asked. When listened to alongside the official versions on Big Science, it provides a fascinating window into Anderson’s creative process and how she developed her voice in the early days.
The primer playlist
For Spotify users, listen below or click here; for Apple Music users, click here.
Further Reading
Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary, by Sasha Geffen
In this book for the University of Texas Press’ American Music Series, journalist Sasha Geffen traces various technological developments in music and how they empowered pop artists to further bend and dissolve gender binaries. Geffen uses Anderson’s practice of audio drag as part of a larger conversation on the cyborg voice. A must-read for all those interested in the politics of sound.
All the Things I Lost in the Flood, by Laurie Anderson
Anderson compiled this book after combing through four decades of her own archival work. With chapters dedicated to the many different media she’s dabbled in over the years, the publication uses pictures, sketches, self-styled phonetic alphabet and essays to paint a vivid picture of her narrative-obsessed world and the art she’s made in service of it.
Laurie Anderson on Sculpting Sounds with Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and more
A great read for those wanting to know more on what goes into the making of an Anderson record. In it she does a deep dive on many of the albums recommended above, breaking down her production process, studio strategies and countless collaborations.
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