Life on a String

Laurie Anderson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 21, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000050K9A
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #130,802 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A new Laurie Anderson album is usually a thing to welcome. Often less a performance artist than point person for global-village storytelling--as on 1995's The Ugly One with the Jewels--she's also demonstrated a high level of musical savvy. Life on a String's meld of Biblical references, New York wanderings, world rhythms, and chamber music doesn't cohere like it should, though. Caught between bemusement and empathy, Anderson's knack for nailing oddball details can lift her work beyond mere wit, but not here. On "Dark Angel," she damns consumerism with lines that would've been laughable even at the outset of her career in the '70s: "Look at all the things I bought / I'm feeling kind of lost." Her quoting "I'm a Little Teapot" on "One Beautiful Evening" sounds like self-parody, or the result of a lost dare with another artsy type. And is the observation that it's a small world but she wouldn't want to paint it supposed to sound fresh? For true Anderson wigginess and smarts, try Ugly One, or for that matter, her classic debut, Big Science. --Rickey Wright

Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 21-AUG-2001

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, August 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Life on a String (Audio CD)

I couldn't disagree with the Amazon reviewer more. This is a beautiful sonically textured and highly intimate work that reveals a more personal side of Laurie Anderson. While there is still humor and social commentary to be found, the music and lyrics don't hide behind glib irony, as some of her other work has. However you'd like to categorize it, this is pure and emotional music. And her violin playing is gorgeous. This is an album that will continue to reveal its colors as time passes, and won't date itself from trendy production.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Brims with musical ideas but is too inconsistent, August 22, 2001

By 

William Merrill "eclecticist" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life on a String (Audio CD)

Listening to Laurie Anderson's new disc, it's easy to remember her roots as an avant garde performance artist. Unfortunately "avant garde" often means challenging, intriguing music that you listen to only once. "Life on a String" has really cool packaging, marvelous sound quality, a top drawer collection of backing musicians, and a lot of interesting ideas. What it does NOT have is an album's worth of "Excellent Birds" kind of melodies you'll want to hear again in the future. The 21st Century Laurie Anderson seems to be interested in trying an even wider palette of song concepts and arrangements than usual, including a decreased emphasis on synthesizers and more on strings, vocals, and other sources. I thought I was missing the synths, but when they showed up on track six, "My Compensation," I wished they had stayed away. Besides the random electronic blips and blurps, the only character the song has is in Laurie's bland cadence of a vocal. One of the many impressive collaborators is Van Dyke Parks, but he and Laurie brought out the worst in eachother -- Parks contributing one of his generic "zipidee-doo-dah" orchestral arrangements to go with Anderson's wandering narrative on "Dark Angel." Terminally un-memorable. Then, FINALLY, things come to life on the last 4 or 5 cuts. For example, "Statue of Liberty" is a powerful meditation on a citizen's responsibility to speak out, made strong by a haunting melody, Ms. A.'s sorrowful violin, and subtle yet effective swashes of keyboard effects. If only the whole disc were made up of songs like those in the last third of the CD, this might have been a keeper.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Narrative Prose, September 9, 2001

By 

Jason Stein (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Life on a String (Audio CD)

Laurie Anderson's first proper cd since 1994's "Bright Red" continues the same half-spoken, half-sung stories she's been making since 1982's "Big Science". This time out the stories aren't as interesting, and the music doesn't grab you like her other efforts do. My bias in Anderson's catalogue is towards "Strange Angels" and "Bright Red". "Life On A String" seems somewhere between those other discs. This is not to say that this cd doesn't have its share of interesting tracks like "Slip Away", "Pieces And Parts", "The Island Where I Come From" and "One White Whale". Overall, it just felt like Laurie is sitting on the sidelines instead of being the innovator she usually is. However, any Laurie Anderson cd, including this one, is far more interesting than what's on the radio!