From Allmusic.com : "An obscure 1981 release that only got anything approaching mainstream notice retroactively -- after Laurie Anderson's surprise breakthrough with 1982's Big Science and its unexpected hit single, "O Superman" -- this is a double-LP set featuring one side each of contributions from Anderson, poet John Giorno, and William S. Burroughs, plus a fourth side that had three lock grooves in it; depending on where the needle was placed, you'd hear more works by one of the three participants. (The 1993 CD simply puts each participant's extras at the end of their section.) Anderson's contributions are rough-sounding early versions of minor pieces that eventually ended up in her masterwork, United States I-IV, plus an early recording of "Born, Never Asked" that's lacking in comparison to the richer-sounding remake on Big Science. Burroughs' pieces are primarily of interest to die-hard Burroughs fans, as they come mostly from the era when he was simply reworking old manuscripts, and as a poet, John Giorno makes a pretty good small-press publisher. For completists only."
Side 1 :
1. Laurie Anderson - Dr. Miller
2. Laurie Anderson - It Was Up In The Mountains
3. Laurie Anderson - Drums
4. Laurie Anderson - Closed Circuits
5. Laurie Anderson - Born, Never Asked
Side 2 :
1. John Giorno - I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, And You Cheated Me Out Of It
2. John Giorno - Completely Attached To Delusion
Side 3 :
1. William S. Burroughs - Introducing John Stanley Hart; He Entered The Bar With The Best Intentions
2. William S. Burroughs - Twilight's Last Gleamings
3. William S. Burroughs - My Protagonist Kim Carson
4. William S. Burroughs - Salt Chunk Mary; Like Mr. Hart, Kim Has A Dark Side To His Character
5. William S. Burroughs - Progressive Education
6. William S. Burroughs - The Wild Fruits
7. William S. Burroughs - The Unworthy Vessel
Side 4 :
1. Laurie Anderson - For Electronic Dogs / Structuralist Film-Making
2. William S. Burroughs - The Name Is Clem Snide / Mr. Hart Couldn't Hear The Word Death
3. John Giorno - Excerpt From Put Your Ear To Stone & Open Your Heart To The Sky
"You're The Guy I Want To Share My Money With" was released by Giorno Poetry System in 1981.
From Allmusic.com : "After briefly entering the mainstream pop radar in 1981 with her lone hit "O Superman," Laurie Anderson enjoyed a public visibility greater than virtually any other avant-garde figure of her era. Her infrequent forays into rock aside, Anderson nevertheless remained firmly grounded within the realm of performance art, her ambitious multimedia projects encompassing not only music but also film, mime, visual projections, dance, and -- most importantly -- spoken and written language, the cornerstone of all of her work. Born in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, IL on June 5, 1947, she studied violin as a teen; relocating to New York City at age 20, she later attended Barnard College, graduating with a B.A. in art history in 1969. After earning an M.F.A. in sculpture from Columbia University in 1972, Anderson taught art history and Egyptian architecture at City College; she mounted her first public performances a year later.
By 1976, Anderson was regularly mounting performances in museums, concert halls, and art festivals throughout North America and Europe; claiming to base all of her projects on the power of words and language, her work also emphasized visual imagery and cutting-edge technology, with pieces like 1980's Born, Never Asked, written for both orchestra and electronics. A year later, Anderson recorded "O Superman" for the tiny New York label 110 Records; an 11-minute single built around electronic drones and featuring opaque lyrics half-spoken and half-sung (in a voice sometimes electronically treated); this most unlikely hit became a smash in Britain, where it reached the number two spot on the national pop charts. Warner Bros. soon signed Anderson to record a full-length LP, and in 1982,she issued Big Science, a work drawn from a much larger project, the seven-hour multi-media performance United States.
With 1984's Mister Heartbreak, Anderson produced her most overtly pop-oriented work, teaming with artists including Peter Gabriel and Adrian Belew; the end result even reached the American Top 100. That same year, she also issued United States Live, a recorded document of the complete performance spread across a five-LP set. Anderson's next project, Home of the Brave, was a concert film; a year later, she also scored the Jonathan Demme/Spalding Gray film Swimming to Cambodia. A proper studio album, Strange Angels, did not follow until 1989; the next several years were devoted to performance tours, including 1990's Empty Places, 1991's Voices from the Beyond, and 1993's Stories from the Nerve Bible. In 1994, Anderson teamed with producer Brian Eno for Bright Red, also featuring her boyfriend Lou Reed; the following year she released the LP The Ugly One with Jewels as well as Puppet Motel, a CD-R confirming her ongoing interest in the latest technology. In 2001, Anderson issued Life On A String which contained songs from her large musical theater pieces Moby Dick and Strange Angels. In 2001, two weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Ms. Anderson recorded a live album at Town Hall, New York City (on its cover werre the poignant words "New York City, September 19-20, 2001." It was released as Live At Town Hall NYC in 2002. Ms. Anderson continued her appearance schedule but didn't record for another seven years when she began working on Homeland, which was released by Nonesuch in 2010."
"United States Live" was released by Warner Bros. Records in 1984, then re-released in 1991.
From Allmusic.com : "There was a backlash against Laurie Anderson in "serious" musical and artistic circles after the completely unexpected mainstream commercial success of her debut album, Big Science. (The eight-plus-minute single "O Superman" was a chart hit in England, unbelievably enough.) A fair listen to Big Science leaves the impression that jealousy must have been at the root of the reception because Big Science is in no way a commercial sellout. A thoughtful and often hilariously funny collection of songs from Anderson's work in progress, United States I-IV, Big Science works both as a preview of the larger work and on its own merits. Opening with the hypnotic art rock of "From the Air," in which an airline pilot casually mentions that he's a caveman to a cyclical melody played in unison by a three-part reeds section, and the strangely beautiful title track, which must feature the most deadpan yodeling ever, the album dispenses witty one-liners, perceptive social commentary (the subtext of the album concerns Anderson's own suburban upbringing, which she views with more of a bemused fondness than the tiresome irony that many brought to the subject), and a surprisingly impressive sense of melody for someone who was until recently a strictly visual artist. For example, the marimba and handclap-led closer, "It Tango," is downright pretty in the way the minimalistic tune interacts with Anderson's voice, which is softer and more intimate (almost sexy, in a downtown-cool sort of way) than on the rest of the album. Not everything works -- "Walking and Falling" is negligible, and the way Rufus Harley's bagpipes intentionally clash with Anderson's harsh, nasal singing and mannered phrasing in "Sweaters" will annoy those listeners who can't take either Yoko Ono or Meredith Monk -- but Big Science is a landmark release in the New York art scene of the '80s, and quite possibly the best art rock album of the decade."
"Big Science" was released by Warner Bros. Records in 1982, then re-released in 1990.
