Talk Normal: A Laurie Anderson Anthology

Laurie Anderson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 17, 2000)
• Original Release Date: October 17, 2000
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00004YLIR
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,436 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Laurie Anderson is something of a missionary. Having endured the scorn of some influential avant-garde peers for "selling out" (by signing to a major label and taking her live shows to a relatively large, mainstream audience), Anderson instead chose to challenge their assumptions, proving by default that they were as ossified as anything in the so-called mainstream. Anderson also chose not to define herself strictly as an artist, but as a storyteller and de facto humorist--and one that dared point out that her chosen venue of "performance art" wasn't particularly avant at all. Or that the dreaded cliché was often merely the most efficient way to make a story point. This generous double-disc anthology charts the arc of Anderson's adventurous "mainstream" recording career, from the minimalist, unlikely Euro-hit "O Superman" through 15 years of ever more ambitious studio recordings and live shows. Tellingly, as Anderson's ambitions and acceptance grew, so did her playful warmth and often self-deprecating humor. Indeed, much of this set is an implicit jab at the implicit elitism of the so-called avant-garde--or is it their jealousy? --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laurie Anderson's Greatest Hits 81-95, October 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Talk Normal: A Laurie Anderson Anthology (Audio CD)

What's crystal clear, very bright yet often dark, and goes 70 MPH ? Laurie Anderson's Anthology "Talk Normal" playing in my car. Oh boy, right again. This package is an overview of LA's career under Warner Brothers with a mixture of studio and live tracks. It ends with material from her 1995 Nerve Bible Tour, so fans (like me) who have been kept waiting and waiting for her current label, Nonesuch Records, to release material from her 1999/2000 Moby Dick Tour are, well, still waiting. There's a little sentence in the thoughtful full-color booklet that comes with this collection which says that "Laurie Anderson's new album with Nonesuch Records will be released in 2001". Don't hold your breath since the info on rarely-updated website laurieanderson.com said it would be much sooner (and that website is NOT given as LA's official website in the booklet but rather a fan site is ! Weird...). However, "Talk Normal" is a very good linear retrospective on Laurie's career. In fact, a highly visible progression is easy to see when you listen to this album package from beginning to end. Much of the early work, especially the live cuts from "United States Live" are innovative but shrill. I avoided the fast-forward button as long as I could, then gave in. The first CD of "Talk Normal" is the reason I was not an LA fan in her early days (with the exception of "Gravity's Angel" and "Sharkey's Day", both personal favs) but it's important work none the less. Then we get into the heavenly "Strange Angels" with the second CD, which marks a less-experimental and a welcome and more "musical" phase of LA's work which continues through today. The second CD of this set is full of the music and poetry that modern LA fans like myself have come to love. The entire album was remixed and the producer was Laurie Anderson so this isn't just a repackaging job of old material by WB as much as it's a retrospective look on a unique musical voyage by the artist herself. The booklet contains lots of pictures and a study of LA's career through her albums. Yes, it even mentions Laurie's romantic interest, Lou Reed, prominently. For any fan of Laurie Anderson, new or old, this is THE definitive anthology in one album set. The remixes are not noticibly different from the originals (possibly cleaner due to modern technology). But I gave this album five stars because it sound great, I couldn't bear for my collection to be without it, and after all, it's Laurie Anderson.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult Music, September 25, 2005

By 

James Simon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Talk Normal: A Laurie Anderson Anthology (Audio CD)

"Difficult Music" is a track composed by Laurie Anderson to introduce one of her song / stories. It's also an excellent way to descibe a majority of her work. She has never been a pop artist. So it's misleading to think this collection is a "greatest hits" retrospective. Laurie Anderson, the performance artist from New York City, has very few tracks that received radio or video airplay. Even when singles were released like "O Superman" and "Sharkey's Day", they were hardly soaring up the charts. Yet she worthy of this release for changing the way we think of performance art today and music in general.

A better description is an anthology of Ms. Anderson's works from her Warner Bros. years from 1981 through 1995. In that respect, it covers most of the essential tracks that were not just popular amongst her fans but shows the diversity of her work. True, "O Superman" is a fantastic minimalist piece that hit the pop scene especially in Europe. But she can go the other way too, like the comedic and carribean influenced "Babydoll" about a conversation with her brain ("He says, take me to your leader". And I said, "Do you mean George"? He said "I just want to meet him". And I said "C'mon, like, I don't even know George"!). Most of her works deal with the battle of the sexes and inability to communicate ("It Tango", "Laguage d'Amour"), travel ("Big Science", "Lighting Out For The Territories"), and oddities of life. As her recordings progress, we get the increased sense of fear creeping into her work. Fear from society's woes like war ("Night In Baghdad"), AIDS ("Love Amongst The Sailors"), and jealousy ("Poison").

The collection ends appropraitely with selections from "The Ugly One With The Jewels", tracks that were recorded live on stage. Not songs, but spoken stories of her youth and from encounters from years of touring accompanied with minimal musical background. Ms. Anderson has always considered herself first and foremost a storyteller. Her stories are always given a slightly artistic tweak and become introspective searches of who we are as people and how we relate to others. "Talk Normal" is a quality look back at one of the more creative and interesting recording and performance artists today.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love Ms. Anderson, but still dislike re-mixes...., July 31, 2001

By 

Mark D. Kindt (Lakewood, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Talk Normal: A Laurie Anderson Anthology (Audio CD)

I had very high hopes for this anthology, but was indeed disappointed to discover that many of the cuts were re-mixed. Rarely, have I ever heard a re-mix that was superior in quality to the original release. This is especially so in Ms. Anderson's case, where the original material is always of such high and sublime quality.