Big Science (studio album) by Laurie Anderson

From Jboy56 04/16/2022 06:10

Non por moi..

From ExTeaSea 08/26/2018 15:31

Took me a few listens to completely appreciate this strangely beautiful album. First listen I'm all like what the heck am I listening to? Haha but now I love it's uniqueness and charm.

From Sandrof1969 02/17/2018 15:04

Rarissimo esempio di musica prevalentemente elettronica ma allo stesso tempo "suonata", algida e contemporaneamente calda, altera ma pure in grado di scalare incredibilmente le classifiche ( con un brano di otto minuti: "O superman" ) ed a cui non difetta una caratteristica totalmente assente in altre operazioni similari in ogni epoca: l'ironia.

A quirky little album. Big science, is full of brilliant little stories and characters. It's amazing to think what a massive hit, oh superman, was, considering it's not exactly chart material. It's all lovely and atmospheric. Still, totally unique.

From RoundTheBend 04/24/2016 05:01

Wow.

From SuedeSwede 05/31/2015 17:05

gotta love hairymarx

From timtooky 03/31/2014 18:27

without the background history and the total packet of the art performance the muusic appears exotic, strange and annoying. not my cup of tea.

Laurie Anderson is not just a musician, but also a performance artist. Now, while I have no trouble defending the music on Big Science, I am well aware that it was originally presented (and arguably is meant to be presented) as a full performance piece, with the music only being a portion. Just to clarify, Big Science makes it onto my list purely by the merit of its music, and not any performance art with which it is associated. Now as for the music in question, holy shit. I mean like seriously. Minimalist and monochrome sure, and with a shit-ton of spoken word samples, but emotionally evocative and deeply unsettling in equal proportion as well. Laurie Anderson, with the hi-tech tools at her disposal, can engender the height of emotional response from the listener with the fewest possible compositional pieces by arranging them in a way that is "perfect", by the merit of it feeling slightly off-kilter, just enough so that even the most non-musical pieces become memorable

This avant-garde classic is essentially a subtle exploration of the banality of the mechanized consumer society charateristic of the modern metropolis.The songs are sketches of life within an ordered society - slow, repetitive and colloquial, halfway between the hypnotic and the dreamlike. Layers of filtered vocals, spoken more than sung, hint at a future without emotion or feeling.