Big science and uncanny prescience: Laurie Anderson’s greatest songs – ranked!

Forty years since her pioneering concert film Home of the Brave, and ahead of a European tour, we count down the best of a surprisingly poppy avant garde catalogue From a compilation released by William Burroughs associate John Giorno – fellow contributors included Patti Smith, Philip Glass and the Fugs – comes the fledgling sound of Laurie Anderson’s breakthrough Big Science: spoken word, electronically manipulated voices, violin. It doesn’t quite work, but it’s worth hearing, not least for ...

By Alexis Petridis