Talk Normal: A Laurie Anderson Anthology
Laurie Anderson is something of a missionary. Having endured the scorn of some influential avant-garde peers for "selling out" (by signing to a major label and taking her live shows to a relatively large, mainstream audience), Anderson instead chose to challenge their assumptions, proving by default that they were as ossified as anything in the so-called mainstream. Anderson also chose not to define herself strictly as an artist, but as a storyteller and de facto humorist--and one that dared point out that her chosen venue of "performance art" wasn't particularly avant at all. Or that the dreaded cliché was often merely the most efficient way to make a story point. This generous double-disc anthology charts the arc of Anderson's adventurous "mainstream" recording career, from the minimalist, unlikely Euro-hit "O Superman" through 15 years of ever more ambitious studio recordings and live shows. Tellingly, as Anderson's ambitions and acceptance grew, so did her playful warmth and often self-deprecating humor. Indeed, much of this set is an implicit jab at the implicit elitism of the so-called avant-garde--or is it their jealousy?--Jerry McCulley