The late-70's and early 80's saw an explosion of different music styles, all trying to fill the vacuum of the death of disco and corporate mega-rock. In many ways is similar to biological evolution (to use a very extreme example) where every once in a while there is a great die-off of the predominant "type" allowing other forms to move in and occupy the now vacant space.It happened way back about 225 million years ago during the Permian-Triassic extinction, when nearly all invertebrates disappeared, paving way for vertebrate populations. It happened again about 65 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which took care of the dinosaurs and allowed mammals to flourish. And in music it happened in the late 70's when people finally woke up to realize that there is something seriously wrong when KC & the Sunshine Band and Toto could be mega stars.
One type of music that found new success was the experimental sort of ambient electronic music pioneered by folks like Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. That style led to a new form of electro-prog (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel), synth new-wave (Devo, Wall of Voodoo), geek rock (Talking Heads), and weird minimalist artsy-fartsy rock, like Laurie Anderson.
Big Science is Anderson's first album, and was culled from her eight hour (performed over two consecutive nights) stage show, United States, and featured her 1981 nerd-hit O Superman.
Side 1:
|  
|
Side 2:
|
Right from the opening it's pretty clear that this is an artsy-fartsy album. Many of the songs are half-spoken and insinuate the pretense and snobbery of artists doing things that normal people just don't get. The music is most definitely minimalist, with somewhat brooding overtones and repetitive loops. But even with all that baggage, the album is quite endearing because the songs each have their own personality. For example, because of the bagpipes, Sweaters has the nasaly sound of a Chinese opera, while the accordion, sax, and clarinet on Example #22 give it a klezmer vibe.
Lyrically, the songs range from the philosophical (Walking and Falling):
You're walking. And you don't always realize it / but you're always falling.To the absurd (Example #22):
With each step, you fall forward slightly / and then catch yourself from falling.
The sun is shining slowly / the birds are flying so low.
Honey you're my one and only / so pay my what you owe me.
To the flat out weird (Big Science):
You know. I think we should put some mountains here.This combination of pointy-headed pretentiousness with curious sounds and silly lyrics positioned Big Science to be a favorite of weirdos, academics, disaffected artists, and pseudo-intellectual poseurs. In other words, it was destined for college radio success, and took Laurie Anderson from the relatively unknown world of the self-absorbed dense experimental artist and brought her into the comparatively broader atmosphere of the self-absorbed dense experimental student. It may not sound like much, but that actually is a step up.
Otherwise, what are the characters going to fall off of?
There is a lot to like about Big Science, and it's an album that I find myself revisiting on a regular basis since I first bought it way back in my freshman year at college. Back then, its artsy-fartsy origins and facade of selective appeal gave me a bit of nerd-cred and helped in getting the attention of the cute geek girls in the dorm. Today, it's a nostalgic return to a time when there was no such thing as "too weird" in music. The old boundaries were gone and musicians were allowed to just let themselves go, pushing the limits of what they wanted to do and expanding the territory of sound. It's a sharp contrast to the scene today, where music is again constricting into a limited range, making albums like Big Science sound even more bizarre and revolutionary than whey they were originally released.
Up next: "New Wave" explodes on the scene
No comments:
Post a Comment