I loved watching her concert film Home of the Brave, I'm not a big fan of hers, but it was interesting, sorta pre-blue man group in it's use of weird instruments.

For a minute there, I thought I was parked in front of my TV set late on Friday nights back in the early 1980s, watching USA Network's old "Night Flight" series. That's where I first saw this video and was blown away by its early techno vibe. I picked up the "Big Science" album and others than came after it and saw her perform, IIRC, at Austin's Paramount Theater for the "Home of the Brave" tour; a very cool and extremely trippy mix of music, spoken word and performance art. Highlight for me: her "musical" suit. She would beat on her jacket and pants with her fists, and sampled sounds erupted; high-tech cleverness in the pre-wired era.

And she's married to Lou Reed now, if I recall correctly.

Should they ever have kids, they'll probably be the luckiest kids in all eternity.

I was so young when she was popular that I totally missed her. I just recently discovered her stuff and have since bought Big Science, Home of the Brave and the 5 disc United States Live on wonderful vinyl editions.

God, I miss USA's Nightflight. Which was MTV if it had balls.

Let's hear it for post-modernism! I first heard of Ms. Anderson when she was featured as a composer in our state's music listening contest (basically Quiz Bowl for classical music nerds). If it weren't for her, I'd never even give two seconds' notice to other post-modern composers like Luciano Berio.

My parents were listening to this when I was in the womb. Laurie Anderson has probably been the most constant musical presence in my life. To this day, her words can still frighten me to death, or gently put me to sleep.

"oooo cooocooo cooocooo, it's cold outside..."

She was the first Artist-In-Residence for freakin' NASA.

My first major uber geek crush!

I've been fortunate to have seen Laurie perform pretty much every year since HotB - Nerve Bible (incredible tour), Puppet Motel (also very cool early game for the Mac), Moby Dick and so many small solo pieces. She is an art goddess. Dang.

Her crossover into mainstream pop culture's only downside as I see it, was the decision by the hands that take, to try and make "performance art" marketable - sort of an antithesis to the point of the genre. Lowest point: Daryl Hannah in Legal Eagles. Ugh.

Off the soapbox now.

A hearty nod to all the Night Flight folk as well...so much coolness in a neat weekly package.

I had a friend who was killing time between classes on her college campus when Laurie Anderson wandered past. This girl, a huge fan was just dumbstruck for a moment and then finally managed to blurt out "You're Laurie Anderson! ...I want to have your baby!!!" Ms. Anderson just smiled and said "When medical science catches up to you, give me a call."

As a longtime fan, I strongly recommend Strange Angles as a gentle introduction. I also love Bright Red, but it is a little out there (produced by Brian Eno). Also, dig out your old Peter Gabriel albums to find Excellent Birds.

Midnight, lights off, listening on the radio in London as a kid.

Check out Philip Glass "Glassworks" and equally amazing piece.

@MonkeyT: Typo: Strange Angels.

I also forgot that she recorded my all-time favorite warning message for the Emergency Broadcast System.

Sometimes in my dreams, I hope Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush will collaborate!

@MonkeyT: I wish the entirety of 'So' had been cooperations with Laurie Anderson.

Yes!! Night Flight was awesome; all of the cultish movies/vids I have never seen anywhere else, like Writing on the Wall, The Fabulous Stains - hell, I just miss independent TV from back then - our local PBS station showed all the best old Brit SciFi on Sunday nights, and what would later become our local Fox affiliate had a proto- MST3k type of show, a couple guys in their bathrobes riffing on bad flicks...

Here come the planes (they are American Planes, Made in America).

Shudder.

Saw her in concert, a couple times. Love her work so much.

"I'm going to draw a picture and I�m going to put in an eight-lane superhighway and I�m going to draw you on it in an old jalopy.
And then I'm going to draw a whole fleet of Mack trucks barreling along the highway with their brights on.
And then I'm going to draw a flat tire on the jalopy and then I�m going to draw the whole jalopy in X-ray to show that you�ve got no gas."

--United States by Laurie Anderson

Actually I heard she hung out with a lot of the Media Lab people back in the days, back before Negroponte was on the map. I think that's where she got lines like:

"So I walked in and there were all these salesmen and a big pile of electronics. And they were singing: Phase Lock Loop. Neurological Bonding. Video Disc. They were singing: We're gonna link you up. They were saying: We're gonna phase you in. They said: Let's look at it this way--Picture a Christmas tree with lots of little sparkly lights, and each light is totally separate, but they're all sort of hanging off the same wire. Get the picture? And I said: Count me out. And they said: We've got your number. And I said: Count me out. You gotta count me out."

When I was kid I had the huge crush on her. Embarrassing to relate but true. It's a nerd thang, you got to understand.

"Lately, I've been doing a lot of concerts in French. Unfortunately, I don't speak French. I memorize it. I mean, my mouth is moving but I don't understand what I'm saying...

... After doing these concerts in French, I usually had the temporary illusion that I could actually speak French, but as soon as I walked out on the street, and someone asked me simple directions, I realized I couldn't speak a single word. As a result of this inadequacy, I found that the people I had the most rapport with were the babies. And one of the things I noticed about these babies was that they were apparently being used as some kind of traffic testers. Their mothers would be pushing them along in their strollers--and they would come to a busy street with lots of parked cars--and the mother can't see what the traffic is like because of all the parked cars--so she just sort of edges the stroller out into the street and cranes her head out afterwards. And the most striking thing about this is the expression on these babies' faces..."

-- United States, Part Two

Years ago, I took the train into Manhattan to go to a reading by William Gibson.

I forget the book he was introducing, but the big news at the time was his limited-edition, self-destructing book "Agrippa." It was distributed on a floppy disk that encrypted itself as it played.

Gibson was introduced by Laurie Anderson, who as I recall was wearing a sparkly black dress. And, yeah, geek crush severe.

Anderson told a great story. She first read Neuromancer while on vacation on a Caribbean island. It was hot and very humid. As she read, the book binding fell apart . . . duplicating the action of Agrippa. She imagined people picking up the wind-blown pages and reading the book out of order.

@DearEditor: And the only.

The concert performance she gave in the wake of the termination of that contract was great, and the only time I've seen her live.

Buy her live album recorded in New York. It was recorded on Sept. 19 & 20th, 2001 and contains so many poignant moment. Hell, I'd GIVE my copy to someone in the Vancouver area....I'm dumping all my physical media, but I want that one to pass to a fan.

@stefan_jones: Gibson seems to posit that Agrippa never actually existed in its self destructive format...such a thing is a myth.

@MonkeyT: The PSA's are amazingly funny - and spot on.

The better half and I took an over-night train to see the Strange Angels road show in a tiny, smoky club in Montreal - to this day I get shivers when I play "Coolsville", the footage she used and the combination of electric bow and vocalizations just floored me.

@orbital1: Oh, man. I'd forgotten about Legal Eagles. (They really should have hired Laurie to produce something for DH to perform instead of trying to copy the technique.)

Laurie Anderson, Gillian Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Mr. Anderson...There is something to that name.

It is inevitable. You cannot avoid it.

You cannot hug your children with petrochemical arms.

@darcymcgee: Your assertion (and Gibson's) that Agrippa never existed in a self-destructing form proves that it did exist and worked perfectly. Ta-dah! Now off to fix the economy...

"We're all going down..." I enjoyed seeing her live several times. Always a great show and provocative on several levels.

I'm glad that I'm not the only left that remembers USA's Nightflight... Someday soon I will be.

I can remember being about 15, it must have been '82. I was watching TV with my dad, I wish I could remember what show it was...

Anyways, Laurie Anderson (if I recall correctly) was performing O Superman. Me and my dad laughed about the sperm cell the size of a sperm whale line.

She's always been an icon.

-
Love Laurie Anderson! Saw her at the restored Warner Theater in Washington DC.

If you want the Peter Gabriel song "Excellant Birds" you'll have to look for Laurie Anderson's album "Mister Heartbreak." This album also features a second Peter Gabriel Laurie Anderson duet "Gravity's Angel" Both great tunes, but wait if you act now you'll also find on this album the song "Sharky's Day" with with vocals by none other then Willams S. Burroughs!!!

"I look into your eyes and I see two tiny pictures of me
And they're doing everything I do
I take a drink, I look and they're drinking too
It's driving me crazy, it's driving me nuts!"

-
Oops, almost forgot, YEAH Night Flights!
If you like music videos that no one else will show (I'm looking at you MTV!) Do a search for the TV show "Strictly Global" They show videos of everything from Israeli rappers to Japanese death metal to Italian opera with a video spoofing evey b-movie road warrior rip off. Watch it with pen and papper handy 'cause you'll want to remmember the info later for those Amazon music searches...

I second the recommendation of Laurie Anderson's _Strange Angels_. It is by far her most "accessible" album, and I think it's her best. In fact, I'd put it in my top 10 or 20 favorite albums of all time.

"You know, for each dollar a man makes, a woman makes only 63 cents. Fifty years ago, that was 62 cents. So, with that kind of luck, it will be the year 3888 before we make a buck."

She also had a series of Bravo TV "Personal Service Announcements" which were pithy. You can find them on YouTube, such as on on the national debt

+ Watch video

+ Watch video

I've told people that Laurie Anderson is required listening. You don't have to like it, but you should be exposed to it.

@Taed: As she said, "If you can understand this, you can understand what's happening in the art world today." I don't understand it, but I know what I like.

'Big Science' is an all-time favorite. Incredibly ahead of its time.

@Taed:
@MonkeyT:

I totally agree with you both that Strange Angels is her most accessible and most musical album. This collaboration with Bobby McFerrin yielded 100% magic!

I've got a beautiful red dress
And you'd look really good
Standing beside it

And if you ever have the chance to see her live - do it!!!

@DearEditor: Fix the economy? What's to fix? The U.S. is to Canada as Mexico is to the U.S. I see no problem with that.

@IchabodCrane: Excellent Birds is also on the CD release of So, although there are two different mixes as I recall. The one on So is a bit...poppier, but equally good.

She's phenomenal. It was her use of Wittgenstein in her work that got me reading him and other philosophers. I'm happy whenever she gets popular recognition.

Ah Laurie Anderson... truly a viral artist: my cousin introduced my to her music when I was ~18yo. I then introduced her work to other younger friends, sometimes by doing a monologue version of "walking and falling." Ah youth, it allows you to be pompous and sincere at the same time. :)

I remember seeing a show of hers in Miami Beach in the early 90s and running into one of the people I had introduced Laurie's music to.

Gravity's Angel is my favorite of hers.

I used to play "From the Air" upon each takeoff, on my Walkman. It was my good luck song....

I've worshiped Laurie Anderson for over 20 years. Seen her perform three times and planning the fourth. And I have just about everything she's ever released, including the incredibly rare Home of the Brave movie on VHS, plus bootlegs of all her other videos. (She's releasing a DVD box set soon, and you better believe I'll be snapping it up.)

When my spouse and I went out on our first date, one of the first things we discovered about each other was that we both loved her. This was a major bonding issue.

For geeks with an artistic bent, she's an absolute goddess.