Customer Reviews

Strange Angels

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Laurie Anderson's third studio release, 1989's "Strange Angels", is the pinnacle of this artist's achievement; it's a brilliant, intelligent, and coherent masterwork that she's been unable to equal either before or since. Lyrically, the songs are much more optimistic than previous efforts, many of them reading like Tama Janowitz short stories. Others are firmly rooted in classic literature ("Monkey's Paw", "The Dream Before" and "Hiawatha" being the most obvious examples). The supporting music is ethereal, almost otherworldly, and works to unify the whole in a beautiful tapestry of sound. Best (and perhaps most surprising) of all, Anderson makes an honest attempt to sing in these tracks, and the effect is absolutely gorgeous. There's still plenty of wry spoken commentary throughout, but Anderson's melodic voice is definitely the focus, and it is a joy to hear. The overall accessibility of "Strange Angels", along with its fully-realized vision, makes this the one Laurie Anderson CD every serious music lover should own. Personal Favorites: the hauntingly melodic title track, and the stunning beauty of "My Eyes". Representative Lyrics: "She said: What is history?/ And he said: History is an angel/ being blown backward into the future" ("The Dream Before"); "They say that Heaven is like TV/ A perfect little world/ That doesn't really need you" ("Strange Angels")

I am a music freak. That's right: way gone. I've explored hundreds maybe thousands of albums: The ones I've purchased; the ones my friends own; the ones I've listened to on headphones in the store; the ones playing in the background at parties.

So I hope it carries some weight when I say I find this album one of the four of five best ever made by a female songwriter. It ranks with Patti Smith's "Horses," Joni Mitchell's "Blue," Tori Amos' "Scarlet's Walk," and Carole King's "Tapestry," but it's less well known than these. This review is a drop in the bucket to change that.

The CD cover, a soft lunar face-shot of Laurie by the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, gives us a clue that this will be dreamy ethereal stuff. The opener and title track "Strange Angels" was brought to my attention by the William Hurt film "The Doctor." Who's this Laurie Anderson? I wondered, rushing off to the record store. Well, this sublime song about being surprised by the nature of the afterlife is witty, poignant, and blessed with a fine melody.

Other stand-outs include the forlorn "Coolsville" with its clicking train sounds and evocation of a lonely night-ride on an Amtrak. It's a song for every misfit kid left out of her high school's in-crowd. Blandly passing the sights, Anderson's monotone observes: "This train, this city, this train."

Even the feminist lecture of "Babydoll" sounds good, saved by its clever wit.

Quoting Longfellow's narrative poem, Anderson's "Hiawatha" bathes us in beautiful Americana. Here is another dreamy melody as if the phantom of the Native American past is reaching out to haunt a modern industrialized country from across its history. It's a gentle haunting, and it takes the form of a ghostly cooing that laces fragments of cultural reference: "Marilyn and John F. dancing." "The king sings 'Love Me Tender.'"

Every bit as strange and beautiful is the spacy "My Eyes," a love song whose sonics evoke whizzing comets and wonder.

Expect some of Anderson's deadpan spoken word performance--more typical of her albums "Big Science" or "Home of the Brave"--but also since some sweet feathery singing, which sounds at times like the gentle coo of a morning dove. Expect absurdist wit and philosophical depth. Expect intelligent poetry and world music-influenced rhythms. Airy-fairy? Arty-farty? You betcha! With a batch of songs this brilliant, Anderson has nothing to apologize for.

I purchased this CD when it was first released years ago, and had to replace it recently because it has been transported around and played so much that scratches developed and ruined it.

This is a CD that is perfect for any occassion, but give yourself some time alone with it to truly appreciate this work of art. Some tunes are haunting and lyrical, some heavy with mischief, sauciness, and wry humour - a Laurie Anderson trademark is you've ever attended her concerts.
I absolutely love this CD and am in the process of wearing down my second copy.

Laurie Anderson's third studio release, 1989's "Strange Angels", is the pinnacle of this artist's achievement; it's a brilliant, intelligent, and coherent masterwork that she's been unable to equal either before or since. Lyrically, the songs are much more optimistic than previous efforts, many of them reading like Tama Janowitz short stories. Others are firmly rooted in classic literature ("Monkey's Paw", "The Dream Before" and "Hiawatha" being the most obvious examples). The supporting music is ethereal, almost otherworldly, and works to unify the whole in a beautiful tapestry of sound. Best (and perhaps most surprising) of all, Anderson makes an honest attempt to sing in these tracks, and the effect is absolutely gorgeous. There's still plenty of wry spoken commentary throughout, but Anderson's melodic voice is definitely the focus, and it is a joy to hear. The overall accessibility of "Strange Angels", along with its fully-realized vision, makes this the one Laurie Anderson CD every serious music-lover should own. Personal Favorites: the hauntingly melodic title track, and the stunning beauty of "My Eyes". Representative Lyrics: "She said: What is history?/ And he said: History is an angel/ being blown backward into the future" ("The Dream Before"), "They say that Heaven is like TV/ A perfect little world/ That doesn't really need you" ("Strange Angels")

I can't add to the justifiably enthusiastic reviews above, as I agree with them. Anderson was never so approachable, lyric or beautiful as in this stunning recording. That does not mean she sold out and made a catchy little pop CD. These songs soar like strange angels. This is--by a substantial margin--my favorite Laurie Anderson recording. I wish she would do more work in this line, trusting her gorgeous voice to do what she proves it can do here.

But beware! This CD doesn't stand up to frequent play. The music will keep you coming back, but somehow the CD itself is fragile. Even though most songs play well, I need to replace my first copy. I just saw an article about the way CDs are more degradable than most people understand. This CD was cited as an example.

With her emphasis on words, some of Laurie Anderson's projects have occasionally seemed more like treatises than music -- not so here. This clutch of fascinating songs not only uses Anderson's breathy voice very well, but shows the expertise of the superb musicians with whom she collaborates, not to mention the innovative use of electronics for which she is also well known.

From the opening "Strange Angels," Anderson creates a mysteriously beautiful world -- sometimes quiet, sometimes noisier -- backed by a glistening instrumental and electronic palette. Often her voice will be electronically reprocessed, as in "Day the Devil," in which she becomes several different personas, including a cackling Satan. Other highlights are "Monkey's Paw" and "Ramon," but there is hardly a weak track on the disc, and many have such catchy melodies that you may be humming them for days.

The sound quality is terrific -- as someone else mentioned, this is a great recording with which to use headphones, and Anderson's haunting special effects come through with beautiful force and clarity.

Strange Angels is sheer sonic poetry, one of the most amazing albums in any genre of music. The song Hiawatha is a vivid cinematic mix drawing on archetypes, modern myth and popular culture, incredibly powerful in the melody, instrumentation and dreamy images it evokes. Equally as exquisite as Hiawatha, The Dream Before unfolds its wistful philosophical musings in hauntingly beautiful imagery and melody lines. Ramon engages the listener with its hypnotic percussive textures and catchy tune; along with Strange Angels and My Eyes, two other melodic beauties, it comes closest to the traditional pop song. Coolsville with its classical structure, icy vocals and nature sounds reminds me a bit of Eurythmics circa Touch, whilst Baby Doll and Beautiful Red Dress have a quirky charm. This album is infused with a magic so unique, it's hard to adequately convey its appeal or to make comparisons, but it shares a certain quirky, spiritual quality with the exquisite music of Jane Siberry and a certain power of witty observation with the defunct Bongwater. Unlike the earlier albums, Strange Angels showcases Laurie Anderson's beautiful singing voice to full effect. This is sheer poetry, a blissful mix of pristine folk and pop vocals borne on electronic textures and mesmerising rhythms that shimmers with real soul and emotion.

This album is excellent; Ten tracks, and nine of them are brilliant. Anderson's lyrics work at a lot of different levels; you listen to something and it's entertaining, but it sets off associations and triggers that give it a richness and psychological depth not found in most popular music. Of course, her music is much the same way -- some of it is a seeming babble, but hypnotic sounds and rythm come together to make a powerful aesthetic whole. -- and if you listen long enough, you'll start thinking about what "music" means and what makes it so powerful.

On this particular album, we have some almost-pop sounding songs -- "Strange Angels" relates a story with a nice tune, but lyrics that make you almost weep. "Monkeys Paw", the second track, is another item with a nice, catchy, simple-seeming syncopated tune, but the longer you listen to it the more you hear. Again, the lyrics will have you thinking hard and challenging assumptions. "The Day the Devil Comes To Get Ya" and "CoolsVille" also are worthy of note: these are more traditional Laurie Anderson tracks, beautifully executed -- Hypnotically rhythmic tracks that build a melody of random-seeming sounds that all work together in unexpected but powerful ways, and lyrics that will, as is her gift in all her work, cause your mind to raise unbidden some profound questions.

"Babydoll" is the only flaw in this album -- here she abandons her talent for lyrical subtlety halfway through the song and instead gets very directly preachy, which is uncharacteristic of her.

After 20 years, Laurie Anderson's "Strange Angels", originally issued in 1989, is a haunting, lyric masterpiece. Laurie Anderson is a musical, visual/graphic, video, literary, and conceptual artist but in "Strange Angels" she creates a brilliant and beautiful statement wrapped in ethereal orchestration. Anderson never compromises her intelligence or underestimates the intelligence of her audience. She has the ability in her lyrics to entertain with wry ironic commentary and then to zing the listener with existential or surreal images. One example is the lyric where Anderson says that the spare change of Angels falls on her, in reference to rain. References to multiple cultural, historic, and literary items and concepts abound in the well integrated series of selections. Her expansion of Longfellow's "Hiawatha" is brilliant. At other times the lyrics evoke the non-sense absurdity of dream images. An example of this is the passage in `Strange Angels' where all the friends visit, stay all night, and clean out the refrigerator.

The music is influenced by classical, popular, western, Indian, and space music in a seamless flowing presentation that transports the viewer into another world. Laurie Anderson's voice, both in her deadpan spoken lyrics and her sung passages, can be penetrating and beautiful. The final two selections `My Eyes' and `Hiawatha' are extremely beautiful. The entire CD integrates to give us a musical lyric commentary on life in America, with its continual search for meaning and beauty and the expectation of the final release into the land of "Strange Angels".

I ran across a cd single of "BEAUTIFUL RED DRESS," at a resale shop across from where I live. It looked interesting and the name Laurie Anderson was vague to me and then it hit me; I remembered having a compilation of "alternative" music with Laurie Anderson's "'O' SUPERMAN" on it. So I bought it and immediately fell in love with the song. I replayed it several times;I just couldn't get enough. A few days later I bought the whole cd and from that moment on I was hooked. All of the tracks are catchy,well-crafted pop songs. My favorite tracks include The Day the Devil,Hansel and Gretel, the title track-Strange Angels, and I forget the titles of the other songs but they're all pop freindly tunes. After awhile, you even find yourself singing along with Laurie Anderson. This was a departure from her normally avantegarde work but still very accessibe and pleasant sounding.