CD Reviews

Laurie Anderson

Big Science | Nonesuch

By TED DROZDOWSKI | August 14, 2007

3.0 Stars

One of the most important albums of the ’80s has been re-released with two appealing extras: the video for the breakthrough hit “O Superman” and its vinyl 45 B-side, “Walking the Dog.” Big Science has also been remastered to restore the low-end sonics of the original vinyl pressing. When you listen 25 years later, it’s chilling how prescient Anderson’s vision — inspired by her travels around the country during the Carter and Reagan years — of a technologically and culturally faltering America has proved. In the age of Homeland Security, “O Superman,” with its low-key industrial throb and raspy vocoder-processed lyrics, rings its warning of fear-fed fascism even more loudly. This disc’s nine original tunes became the foundation of her expansive examination of American life, United States, but “O Superman” — which turned Anderson from a scrappy downtown NYC artist into an international star after British DJ John Peel began spinning her original self-made single — was a wake-up call. It launched the home-studio revolution by validating the efforts of solitary musical tinkerers everywhere, and it paved the way for the mainstream acceptance of early electropop trailblazers like Orchestral Manœuvres in the Dark and Depeche Mode. Anderson outlines the process of creating the album and, in particular, “O Superman” in this set’s liner notes; she also explains her own reckoning with “O Superman” as timeless. “In September 2001,” she writes, “I was on tour and played ‘O Superman’ at Town Hall in New York City. The show was one week after 9/11, and as I sang ‘Here come the planes/They’re American planes,’ I suddenly realized I was singing about the present."

Related: Mooninites invade; all hell breaks loose, Protesting too much, Wolf Eyes, More

Mooninites invade; all hell breaks loose
What made this incidentrise to the level of art was Boston officialdom’s unwitting collaboration and the questions it raised about local art and fear.
Protesting too much
It is bad enough that our pop-cultural-knowledge deficient government and law-enforcement officials go over the top and call for the heads of execs from a media company who almost three weeks ago, and without any evidence of malicious intent, launched a basic, and perhaps even clever, marketing campaign.
Wolf Eyes
In 2004, these Michigan-based noise terrorists got as close to the indie-rock mainstream as any of their niche-market peers when Sub Pop unleashed Burned Mind , Wolf Eyes’ 869th release, on the unsuspecting ears of Iron and Wine fans throughout North America.
College students be damned
Neither public nor private institutions are doing enough to contain costs.
The ravages of deceit
The political firestorm that erupted over the Bush administration’s decision — now on hold — to award the contract for managing six of the nation’s biggest ports (New York, New Jersey, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Miami) to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates sizzles with irony.
Habeas-corpus rights restored to enemy combatants
This past week, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s astonishing claim that it had the power to detain suspected “enemy combatants” at Guantánamo Bay — potentially for life — without fair proceedings or meaningful access to the federal courts.
Elena Kagan’s shaky record
As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.
High ideals and crazy dreams
I have nothing against conspiracy theories.
Camera bluff
Even as critics and moviegoers alike have scorned the surge of movies related to the War on Terror and Iraq, Nina Davenport has quietly been making illuminating, fair-minded, and entertaining films on these topics.
Wallowing
Playwright Deborah Brevoort looked at the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, shook her head, and reduced the tragedy to its effect on one family and one town in The Women of Lockerbie , being staged by Roger Williams University Theatre (through November 22).
The Apocalypse versus stupid human tricks
Among the most poetic and moving artwork to come out of 9/11 is Paul Chan’s series of videos The 7 Lights .
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Topics: CD Reviews , Laurie Anderson, Terrorism, War and Conflict, More

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