A modern masterpiece that will still sound modern in 50 years.

Track Listing

1. From The Air
2. Big Science
3. Sweaters
4. Walking And Falling
5. Born Never Asked
6. O Superman (For Massenet)
7. Example 22
8. Let X=X
9. It Tango

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7891 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Big Science prompted trendy early-1980s art students to plug in their synthesizers and start their own post-punk performance-art-cum-rock-&-roll projects. The album actually produced a hit single in the form of "O Superman." That track and "Let X=X" are the two best-known things from this album, which is a condensation of United States, Anderson's four-and-a-half-hour performance-art piece. Big Science, however, presents the cream of the crop. Although a lot of Anderson's shrill non sequiturs seemed annoying at the time of her breakthrough, she predicted techno music years before it happened. Still, as rock critic J.D. Considine pointed out, her creations are often closer to theatre than to music. --Bill Holdship

CD Description
With BIG SCIENCE, avant-garde sculptor Laurie Anderson madethe big leap from fringe performance artist to commercial success. Originally creating music to embellish her artwork, Laurie soon moved on to creating the music for its own sake,providing a new sound comprised of electronics, voice enhancers, and humorous vignettes. Totally original for 1982, BIGSCIENCE stands up to the test of time, still sounding like an innovative mark of creativity.
From "This is your Captain speaking.".., the opening lines of "From The Air", Laurie stands firmly in charge, piloting through an idiosyncraticand iconoclastic sonic experiment. The title track is an electronic dirge, exotic and technical--a futuristic ballad. "Sweaters" is a Middle Eastern kiss-off ("I no longer love the colour of your sweaters."..), with the curious instrumentation of bagpipes, violin and drums. The unlikely hit "O Superman", with its repeated, hyperventilating "ah"s and spooky comical text, sets the tone--especially when Anderson asks to be held with "electronic arms". The acoustic, international grab-bag of "Example #22" provides one of the funnier lines on an album of countless, clever gems: "Honey you're my one and only/So pay me what you owe me". She also credits several paranormals for their work on the track.
BIG SCIENCE is a collection of mesmerising songs featuring quirky, headypoetry and wonderfully peculiar instrumentation (particularly Anderson's violin, which has a tape-equipped bow that draws against a recording head built into its body). It is an album of distinctive electronic mood music that helped changethe landscape of alternative pop music.

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Customer Reviews

Original, dramatic, powerful, outrageous, beautiful.
"Big Science" is an intense experience. It is also one of the greatest records I've ever heard. Laurie Anderson's ability to touch emotions with pure sound and rhythm is a tribute to her discipline and technical mastery. The sparse clarity of her word-and-sound-scapes leads you curiously on to places you never knew existed! Well, that's what I reckon anyway. Alf agrees with me. Don't cheat yourself - listen to it all in one sitting with the phone off the hook and a do not disturb notice on your door. You may find it bewildering and irritating. It's not pop. You can dance to it. I do! 5 stars and counting.

Like nothing else you've ever heard...bewitching
UK listeners of a certain age will, of course, either love or loathe Laurie Anderson on the strength of her unlikely 1981(?) hit, O Superman. That mammoth track forms the literal centrepiece of this extraordinary record, but is also quite unrepresentative. Laurie Anderson is no one-trick pony.

Every track on this album has its own soundscape and character. Sonically highly experimental (we jump from howling dogs on Track 2 to bagpipes on Track 3), the charm of Anderson's very warm-hearted art lies in the vocal performances. Whilst the music/noises on each track can be somewhat challenging, the largely spoken lyrics draw you into a filmic world that's far from cold or 'difficult'. Subtle humour, of the type that the Yanks do best, is laced through these songs.

Ultimately, Laurie Anderson is perhaps not trying to say anything startlingly profound about life's big questions (as some - not amongst these reviews - have suggested) but takes delight in illuminating little corners of life that tell us a lot about mankind's foibles, occasional failings and overwhelming humanity. She starts the album with the tannoy musings of a pilot about to attempt a crash-landing, and ends it with the heart-melting line "Your eyes. It's a day's work just looking into them.". How does she do that?

I Bought this to sell on Amazon but kept it
This is a personal experience. It's not a strictly an album of music, its art through sound. To the wrong ears it will sound like rubbish.

I am hearing more and more through/in this the more I play it. Shut the door, kill the phone (like the other reviwer said) and light just one candle.

Bonza stuff and one of the deepest and most engrossing experiences on my shelves, that includes my book and video shelves too. Buy it! it's on here for peanuts. I reckon if you like Tori Amos/talking heads/Eno/glass/Arvo Part/Kate Bush you'll get it. Minimal brilliance.

And you can never have too much minimalism.