| Mister Heartbreak | ||||
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| Released | February 14, 1984 | |||
| Recorded | July–December 1983 | |||
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| Length | 40:16 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. | |||
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| Laurie Anderson chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Mister Heartbreak | ||||
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Mister Heartbreak is the second studio album by American avant-garde artist, singer and composer Laurie Anderson, released on February 14, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.
Like its predecessor, Big Science, Mister Heartbreak contains reworked elements of Anderson's performance piece United States Live ("Langue d'Amour", "Kokoku", and "Blue Lagoon"). However, Anderson also introduced new material ("Sharkey's Day"/"Sharkey's Night" and "Gravity's Angel"), while "Excellent Birds", written in collaboration with Peter Gabriel, was written for video artist Nam June Paik's installation Good Morning, Mr. Orwell .
"Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Anderson had "wanted to make an opera of that book ... and asked him if that would be OK... He said, 'You can do it, but you can only use banjo.' And so I thought, 'Well, thanks. I don't know if I could do it like that." [3] "Blue Lagoon" contains allusions to other tales of the sea: William Shakespeare's The Tempest and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick .[ citation needed ]
The album's opening track, "Sharkey's Day", formed the basis of a popular music video. Author William S. Burroughs read the lyrics of "Sharkey's Night", while Peter Gabriel co-wrote and provided vocals on "Excellent Birds", an alternate version of which, entitled "This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)", also appeared on the CD edition of his 1986 album So . [4] According to Anderson, she and Gabriel "could never agree on what a bassline was...it turned into a standoff and so we each put out our own version of the song." [5] A third version of the song can be heard in the music video version, directed by Dean Winkler.
Despite Anderson's aversion to guitars on Big Science, on Mister Heartbreak she employed the services of King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, who appeared on four tracks. Belew recalled that Anderson originally conceived of "Sharkey's Day" as having a "hoedown kind of feel" that centered around an instrument resembling a jew's harp. When describing his approach to the song, Belew stated that "I gravitated toward a very aggressive sound from a pedal called the Foxx Tone Machine, an octave fuzz pedal whose sound resembles the solo sound in Jimi Hendrix’s "Purple Haze". Later Laurie told me the energy of what I chose to play so changed the song she had to completely let go of her original intentions and re-write the song entirely." [6]
Most of the songs on the album were later performed in Anderson's concert film Home of the Brave . Burroughs appears in the film in two brief segments, reciting lines from "Sharkey's Night". "Gravity's Angel" was used in a trailer for the 1991 film Naked Lunch , an adaptation of Burroughs' 1959 novel of the same name. "Sharkey's Night" was also featured in the Australian short documentary film Ladies Please! (1995).[ citation needed ]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [7] |
| Rolling Stone | [8] |
| The Village Voice | A− [2] |
All songs written by Laurie Anderson, except where noted.
Side one
Side two
Musicians
Technical
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | The Billboard 200 | 60 [9] |
| 1984 | Canada RPM | 41 [10] |
| 1984 | Dutch Album Chart | 23 [11] |
| 1984 | Swiss Album Chart | 19 |
| 1984 | New Zealand Album Chart | 12 |
| 1984 | Swedish Album Chart | 46 |
| 1984 | UK Album Chart | 93 [12] |
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She achieved unexpected commercial success when her song "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981.
Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to his guitar tones which, rather than relying on standard instrumental tones, often resemble sound effects or noises made by animals and machines.
Hearts and Bones is the sixth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was released in 1983 by Warner Bros. Records.
Three of a Perfect Pair is the tenth studio album by English band King Crimson, released in March 1984 by record label E.G. It is the final studio album to feature the quartet of Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford.
So is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, released on 19 May 1986 by Charisma Records and Virgin Records. After working on the soundtrack to the film Birdy (1984), producer Daniel Lanois was invited to remain at Gabriel's Somerset home during 1985 to work on his next solo project. Initial sessions for So consisted of Gabriel, Lanois and guitarist David Rhodes, although these grew to include a number of percussionists.
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Mr. Music Head is the fourth solo album by Adrian Belew, released in April 1989, and his first for Atlantic Records. It features the single, "Oh Daddy".
Home of the Brave is a 1986 American concert film directed by, and featuring the music of, Laurie Anderson. The film's full on-screen title is Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson. The performances were filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, NJ, during the summer of 1985.
So Alone is the debut solo studio album by Johnny Thunders, then leader of the Heartbreakers and formerly lead guitarist for New York Dolls. The album was released on 6 October 1978 and was produced by Thunders and Steve Lillywhite. So Alone was preceded by the singles "Dead or Alive" and "You Can't Put Your Arms Round A Memory", the former originally being omitted from the album and later included as a bonus track on the 1992 reissue. The album featured Heartbreakers-members Walter Lure and Billy Rath, as well as several guest musicians, including Phil Lynott, Steve Marriott, Paul Gray, Peter Perrett, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Mike Kellie, Patti Palladin, and Chrissie Hynde.
Big Science is the debut studio album by American performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. It was the first of a seven-album deal Anderson signed with Warner Bros. Records. The album consists of a selection of musical highlights from her eight-hour production United States Live, which was itself released as a 5-LP box set and book in 1984.
United States Live is the first live album and third overall album by avant-garde singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson. Released as a 5-record boxed set, the album was recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City in February 1983.
Collaborations is a compilation album released by Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor in 2005. The album contains songs recorded throughout O'Connor's career on which she collaborated with a variety of artists, spanning several different genres of music. Many of these tracks appeared on the albums of the artists with whom O'Connor performs. The tracks "Empire" and "Heroine" also appear on So Far... The Best of Sinéad O'Connor, released in 1997. One track - "Monkey in Winter" - had never been never released on CD before, and was previously released as B-side on a 12" only.
Home of the Brave is the third studio album and first soundtrack album by avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson, released in 1986 by Warner Bros. Records. The album is a soundtrack of her concert film of the same name.
Bright Red is the fifth studio album by American avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson, released by Warner Bros. in 1994.
G Force is the second studio album by American saxophonist Kenny G. It was released by Arista Records in 1983, and peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, number 17 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and number 62 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Gravity is the third studio album by American saxophonist Kenny G. It was released in May 1985, and reached number 13 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, number 37 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 97 on the Billboard 200.
Talk Normal: The Laurie Anderson Anthology is a retrospective of the seven albums recorded by American experimental music composer Laurie Anderson for Warner Bros. Records. All tracks had been previously released. This was the final Anderson release on the main Warner Bros. label before moving to the subsidiary Nonesuch.
This is a bibliography of the works of William S. Burroughs.
David Van Tieghem is an American composer, percussionist and sound designer, best known for his philosophy of utilizing any available object as a percussion instrument and for his collaborations with the experimental artists Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Robert Ashley and David Byrne.
Homeland is the seventh studio album by Laurie Anderson, released in 2010. A loose concept album about life in the United States. It was her first album of new material since 2001's Life on a String.
