Most people know her for just one. Salwarpe is knee-deep in her catalogue.
Have The Guardian opened a Pandora’s box?
Laurie Anderson’s Greatest Songs
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/may/21/big-science-and-uncanny-prescience-laurie-andersons-greatest-songs-ranked
The absence of Gravity’s Angel on the list is a grievous mistake. The percussive bass that kicks in at 1’30 is a violent, exhilarating whack to the temple with a sledgehammer.
Her multimedia show at Hammersmith in the mid 80s was astonishing. Unequivocally, one of the most thrilling events I’ve been to.
This popped up only this morning.
She was at The Brighton Festival a couple of weeks ago, in The Dome Concert Hall.
Not a bad list overall, but I’ve never been mad about Sharkey’s Day.
I would replace it at No 1 with Love Among the Sailors – wonderfully spacious and atmospheric, and, like many of her songs, it sounds like nobody else.
Decades ago, I was travelling around the US and desperate for new music for my Walkman. Popping into Tower Records in New York, I saw the four-cassette box of Laurie’s United States Live, which shows her with light coming out of her mouth. “What is that?” thought the young me, who had never heard of her or O Superman.
I took a chance, and have been a fan ever since. True, I have to be in the right mood to listen to all of United States back to back, but she is a unique artist who always produces interesting music while also making you think.
Long may she continue to follow her own curious path.
I loved her first two albums but then lost track of subsequent recordings. I need to rectify this. There is a tempting new live CD available, with Anderson backed by a jazz outfit, but I may go first for Homeland, Strange Angels and Bright Red.
Big Science and Mister Heartbreak set a very high bar. Big Science, utterly strange for its time, had sparse music and very clever lyrics (“Well, just take a right where they’re going to build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they’re going to put in the freeway, take a left at what’s going to be the new sports centre, and keep going until you hit the place where they’re thinking of building that drive-in bank. You can’t miss it.” And: “I think we should put some mountains here. Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?”). Mister Heartbreak was slightly less witty lyrically but the sound was fleshed out to perfection (cue Kokoku below).
I was lucky enough to catch the opening night of her two-part United States concert at the Dominion Theatre in London in 1983. It was amazing.
Thanks for the namecheck, Tig. I’m impressed by the level of Laurie knowledge on display above. I also bought the United States cassette box in New York (also from Tower Records), before playing it on loop as I crossed from San Francisco to Philadelphia by Greyhound bus. I’d put One White Whale or Coolsville at the top of my personal Laurie list, or maybe Sweaters, or maybe… there are so many choices.
She’s playing in the Netherlands in the summer. I’m going to try to go.
You were so adventurous back then 😀
I would have included the nervous “Sweaters” (from Big Science): a break-up song like PIL’s “The Flowers of Romance,” with a bagpipe (played by jazzer Rufus Harley; there was a section of the NYC loft scene that used the pipes, e.g. Yoshi Wada).