United States Live

United States Live Artist: Laurie Anderson
Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 4


UPC: 075992519229
EAN: 0075992519229
ASIN: B000002L74


Release Date: 1991-01-29

United States Live


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Tracks:

  1. Say Hello
  2. Walk The Dog
  3. Violin Solo
  4. Closed Circuits (For Voice And Amplified Mic Stand)
  5. For A Large And Changing Room
  6. Pictures Of It (For Acoustic Tape Bow)
  7. The Language Of The Future
  8. Cartoon Song
  9. Small Voice (For Speaker-In-Mouth)
  10. Three Walking Songs (For Tape Bow Violin)
  11. The Healing Horn
  12. New Jersey Turnpike
  13. So Happy Birthday
  14. EngliSH
  15. Dance Of Electricity
  16. Three Songs For Paper, Film And Video

Tracks:

  1. Sax Solo (For Tape Bow Violin)
  2. Sax Duet
  3. Born, Never Asked
  4. From The Air
  5. Beginning French
  6. O Superman
  7. Talkshow
  8. Frames For The Pictures
  9. Democratic Way
  10. Looking For You
  11. Walking And Falling
  12. Private Property
  13. Neon Duet (For Violin And Neon Bow)
  14. Let X=X
  15. The Mailman's Nightmare
  16. Difficult Listening Hour
  17. Language Is A Virus From Outer Space
  18. Reverb
  19. If You Can't Talk About It, Point To It (For Ludwig Wittgenstein And Reverend Ike)
  20. Violin Walk
  21. City Song
  22. Finnish Farmers

Tracks:

  1. Red Map
  2. Hey Ah
  3. Bagpipe Solo
  4. Steven Weed
  5. Time And A Half
  6. Voices On Tape
  7. Example #22
  8. Strike
  9. False Documents
  10. New York Social Life
  11. A Curious Phenomenon
  12. Yankee See
  13. I Dreamed I Had To Take A Test...
  14. Running Dogs
  15. Four, Three, Two, One
  16. The Big Top
  17. It Was Up In The Mountains
  18. Odd Objects (For Light-In-Mouth)
  19. Dr. Miller
  20. Big Science
  21. Big Science Reprise

Tracks:

  1. Cello Solo
  2. It Tango
  3. Blue Lagoon
  4. Hothead (La Langue D'Amour)
  5. Stiff Neck
  6. Telephone Song
  7. Sweaters
  8. We've Got Four Big Clocks (And They're All Ticking)
  9. Song For Two Jims
  10. Over The River
  11. Mach 20
  12. Rising Sun
  13. The Visitors
  14. The Stranger
  15. Classified
  16. Going Somewhere?
  17. Fireworks
  18. Dog Show
  19. Lighting Out For The Territories

Similar Items:

  1. Big Science
  2. Live In New York
  3. Mister Heartbreak
  4. Home Of The Brave: A Film By Laurie Anderson (1986 Film)
  5. The Ugly One With The Jewels And Other Stories

Amazon.com

For most musicians and groups, the live box set marks the culmination of a lengthy recording and concert career. Not so for Laurie Anderson, whose <I>United States Live</I> appeared in 1984, following her tenure in academic and bohemian circles and a small handful of releases on Warner Bros. and smaller labels. The release was an unusual event, though perhaps less so for a musician who seeks to upend musical traditions, most notably the distinctions between pop and classical, spoken and sung, live and Memorex. The lengthy set is a recording of a live performance composed of dozens of carefully defined experiments in form and technique, most of them fitting into one or two of these three categories: show pieces for items from her technological music arsenal (like her emblematic electric violin), witty narrative snippets (back when "spoken word" was called "performance art," prior to the rise of the poetry slam), and full-band performances, featuring, among others, Peter Gordon and David Van Tieghem. "O Superman" and "Big Science" are the familiar titles that appear amid the nearly 80 tracks. "Just a slow accumulation of details," her computer-enhanced voice intones moments before the intro to "Blue Lagoon" (later heard in a studio version on <I>Mister Heartbreak</I>). That makes a nice epigram for the collection as a whole, which is essential to understanding art music of the '80s in general and the New York scene in particular. --Marc Weidenbaum

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Laurie Andersons statement.......2007-03-20

On this beautifull live recording Mrs Anderson shows her brilliant understanding of storytelling and musical basics in her own invented mix of sci-fi, absurdism, folk, modern technology nightmares, andsoforth. You have to hear it, to understand it.

4 out of 5 stars Music of a time that has past..........2007-02-26

I attended the performances of this at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in 1983, over two nights, in excellent seats, well placed to see the visuals. (If you were up in the nosebleed seats at BAM it would not have been ideal.) This was quite a riveting series of performances, and I bought the recordings on 4 cassettes when they appeared. (Note that the original performances were around eight hours, so this is just more than half of the total.)

Laurie Anderson was part avant-garde, part carnival huckster, and you could watch and listen to her and never know exactly which side she was leaning toward. It's easy to dismiss her clichés and simplifications, some of which would almost be stand-up comedy; on the other hand, some of her comments and ideas are much deeper and more complex than they seem.

United States was more of a compilation than a thematic performance. She had been riffing about these ideas for several years, and after the success of O, Superman, managed to tie everything together in this longish performance that took place over two nights. Looking back more than twenty years, some of it still stands up, but much of her music and ideas seems sophmoric. Nevertheless, they are a good reflection of an era: when the Cold War was still alive, when music had just shifted from rock to disco to new wave, when a variety of currents had started becoming mainstream (the music of Philip Glass and Steve Reich made it big in those years, notably with a huge Reich retrospective at BAM and a revival of Einstein on the Beach). So there was, even then, a tinge of nostalgia in United States.

I'll agree with what one reviewer says: the visuals were an integral part of this performance. I seem to recall cameras, but I guess there was never enough demand for a video back then. (If it were performed today, there would be a DVD immediately.)

In spite of any negatives, Laurie Andersond had stage presence, had the courage to present some pretty quirky ideas (her style, however, has become mainstream, as can be seen in many movies these days), and was, for a brief period, unique. Unfortunately, after United States, she started repeating the same stuff over and over.

If you lived through the period, and, especially, if you were fortunate enough to see the performances, this would be a good bit of nostalgia. If not, you'll probably be perplexed. It would be interesting, though, to listen to this closely and see just how much the world has changed since then.

1 out of 5 stars You had to be there.......2006-09-02

ALL THE BEST SONGS ARE ON OTHER ALBUMS.

This is an audio recording from multi-media presentations. Much of the material is geared around visuals and Anderson's stage personnae. This is like listening to a television broadcast of a football game without the picture. You get the general idea what is going on, but you miss a lot. It is not like listening to a football game over the radio, where the broadcasters explain what you aren't seeing.

Without the visuals to go with this CD, many of the stories and jokes come up flat.

This CD set is about 4 and a half hours long. It was taken from several years of Anderson's live shows that eventually became the United States. Each CD more or less covers a specific "tour". Her back up band changes from CD to CD. You can tell that as time goes on, she gets more famous (and maybe has more money) she is able to add more to the shows (and her backup band gets bigger).

The sound quality is amazingly good. It is sharp and crystal clear. There is almost no audience noise, which does help create a good atmosphere for her stories.

About 80% of the material is spoken word. There is some music. It is probably less than 45 minutes of the total 4 and a half hour production.

The recordings come from early in her career. She later redid most of the best material and put in on other albums.

I would suggest getting her other CD's. Or if you want to see her performance art work, I would suggest searching out the Home Of the Brave VHS tape (I don't think it has been released on DVD). Don't get the Home of the Brave CD.

4 out of 5 stars Overdue for digital remastering.......2004-07-01

I remember seeing this performance series being advertised in The Village Voice & wanting desparately to go...but at 17, I didn't quite have the wherewithall to get the $ together to go & have always regretted this. But it was soon enough after that I had a summer job & the LPs were available. The sound was rather thin & scratches noticeable, so I bought the CD box soon after that. I always see this box set around (new & used), so I'm surprised that people say they haven't been able to find it. I always had half-wished that it had gone out of print, if only so that it finally gets the digital remastering (from the original tapes) that it deserves. The one thing that has bugged me about the set is that there is occassional popping/crackling noises that makes it sound as if the cd's were mastered from a pristine LP. The sound on the LP's was always very quiet & you had to turn up the volume, which made any surface noise extremely unpleasant. The CD's are louder, but the tape hiss is more obvious. Some cd's are already on their 3rd remastering.....so it seems that an upgrade is long overdue, SACD would be nice too.

5 out of 5 stars

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