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LAURIE ANDERSON
The Laurie Anderson Anthology: Talk Normal (Warner Bros./Rhino Entertainment)
Reviewed by Holly Day
It's hard to tell whether I like this collection for itself, or for the pure sentimentality that goes along with all of the songs here, unbidden baggage of a geeky adolescence. Even after not hearing much of the stuff here for over a decade, I know all the words to all the songs, and can even remember where I was sitting in my parents' house when I heard these songs, how the cushions of their beat-up old couch felt under me as I drank pot after pot of bad coffee, trying to see how many days I could stay up in a row before I absolutely had to go to sleep. Laurie Anderson was definitely a big part of my life's soundtrack back then, and this two-disc set brings with it too many memories to count.
There is no denying, however, that these Laurie Anderson voyages into early electronic music seem amazingly dated now, even though there's no denying she was way past cutting edge 15-20 years ago. "Oh Superman," with its synth-manipulated vocals and computerized rhythm tracks, seems more like someone spontaneously testing out a synth in a showroom today than the hours and hours of programming that it originally needed to create the sounds and music. The horn samples on "Language is a Virus" sound canned and flat now, as do the bird calls on "Excellent Birds," even though, when the songs first came out, everyone remarked on how real all the instrument samples on her albums sounded. But time is rarely kind to anyone, especially musicians. From a technical standpoint, the only way to really look at this album is in its important place in history-for those who aren't familiar with Anderson's position in history, the CD comes with a great, 49-page book that explains where she fits in to all of it. Myself, I just can't help liking it. It's like getting an old stuffed animal in the mail, some favorite toy you almost forgot about as an adult but couldn't get to sleep without having next to you at night as a child.
© 2001 - Holly Day