United States Live was the third album release by avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 singer-songwriter Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson

Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...

. Released as a 5-record boxed set (later reissued, slightly truncated, on four CDs), the album was recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

 in New York City in February 1983.

United States was Anderson's magnum opus

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

 performance-art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

 piece featuring musical numbers, spoken word pieces, and animated vignettes about life in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Segments ranged from humorous, such as "Yankee See," which gently chided Anderson's record label, Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

, for signing her in the first place, to the apocalyptic anthem "O Superman

O Superman

"O Superman " is a 1981 song by experimental performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Part of the larger work United States, "O Superman", a half-sung, half-spoken, almost minimalist piece unexpectedly rose to #2 on the UK Singles Charts in 1981. Prior to the success of this song, Anderson...

," which had been an unexpected Top 10 hit for Anderson on the UK music charts in 1981.

Originally, United States was presented over the course of two nights, running some eight hours. The United States Live box set is a truncated rendering of the performance, omitting many segments that were solely of a visual nature.

Among the songs performed on the album was "Language is a Virus (from Outer Space)," a pop-like song based upon a phrase attributed to William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

. Anderson later performed a modified arrangement of the song in her 1986 concert film Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave (1986 film)

Home of the Brave is a 1986 American concert film featuring the music of Laurie Anderson, who also directed the movie. 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.The...

.

Although Anderson has since created numerous other major performance pieces (i.e. Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...

, Stories from the Nerve Bible, Happiness, The End of the Moon), United States Live remains, to date, the only serious attempt at producing anything approaching a full-length recording of any of these performances, although her previous album Big Science

Big Science (album)

Big Science is the 1982 debut album by avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson and the first of a 7-album deal she signed with Warner Bros. Records. It is best known for the 8-minute epic "O Superman", which reached #2 in the UK. The album is minimalist and monochrome in sound, and like a great deal of...

and her segment of the compilation You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With

You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With

You're the Guy I Want To Share My Money With is a double album released in 1981. The album is a collaboration by Laurie Anderson, John Giorno and William S. Burroughs, recorded during their "Red Night" spoken word tour of 1981...

consisted of studio-recorded excerpts from United States.

Disc one

1. "Say Hello" – 5:01
2. "Walk the Dog" – 6:45
3. "Violin Solo" – 2:13
4. "Closed Circuits" For voice and amplified mic stand – 6:03
5. "For a Large and Changing Room" – 2:50
6. "Pictures of It" For acoustic Tape Bow – 1:32
7. "The Language of the Future" – 8:02
8. "Cartoon Song" – 1:12
9. "Small Voice" For speaker-in-mouth – 2:03
10. "Three Walking Songs" For Tape Bow Violin – 4:19
11. "The Healing Horn" – 3:01
12. "New Jersey Turnpike" – 11:19 see New Jersey Turnpike
    New Jersey Turnpike
    The New Jersey Turnpike is a toll road in New Jersey, maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. According to the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, the Turnpike is the nation's sixth-busiest toll road and is among one of the most heavily traveled highways in the United...
    
    

Disc two

1. "So Happy Birthday" – 6:23
2. "EngliSH" – 2:08
3. "Dance of Electricity" – 3:02 see Nikola Tesla
   Nikola Tesla
   Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer...
   
   
4. "Three Songs for Paper, Film and Video" – 6:02
5. "Sax Solo" for Tape Bow Violin – 0:55
6. "Sax Duet" – 0:38
7. "Born, Never Asked" – 5:16

Part Two

4. "From the Air" – 2:46
   
5. "Beginning French" – 2:16
   
6. "O Superman
   O Superman
   "O Superman " is a 1981 song by experimental performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Part of the larger work United States, "O Superman", a half-sung, half-spoken, almost minimalist piece unexpectedly rose to #2 on the UK Singles Charts in 1981. Prior to the success of this song, Anderson...
   
   " – 11:05
   
7. "Talkshow" – 6:57
   
8. "Frames for the Pictures" – 1:08
   
9. "Democratic Way" – 1:41
   
10. "Looking for You" – 1:19
    
11. "Walking and Falling" – 1:21
    
12. "Private Property" – 3:04
    
13. "Neon Duet" For violin and neon bow – 3:52
    
14. "Let X=X" – 6:17
    
15. "The Mailman's Nightmare" – 0:46
    
16. "Difficult Listening Hour" – 3:10
    
17. "Language is a virus from outer space - William S. Burroughs
    William S. Burroughs
    William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
    
    " – 7:55
    
18. "Reverb" – 0:26
    
19. "If You Can't Talk About It, Point to It (for Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
    
     and Reverend Ike
    Reverend Ike
    Reverend Ike was an American minister and electronic evangelist based in New York City. He was best known for the slogan "You can't lose with the stuff I use!"-Background:...
    
    )" – 0:33
    
20. "Violin Walk" – 2:44
    
21. "City Song" – 3:34
    
22. "Finnish Farmers" – 5:13
    

Disc three

1. "Red Map" – 1:57
2. "Hey Ah" – 3:50
3. "Bagpipe Solo" – 3:17
4. "Steven Weed" – 1:07 see Patricia Hearst/Steven Weed
5. "Time and a Half" – 2:14
6. "Voices on Tape" – 1:28
7. "Example #22" – 2:33
8. "Strike" – 2:11
9. "False Documents" – 1:59
10. "New York Social Life" – 3:32
11. "A Curious Phenomenon" – 1:06
12. "Yankee See" – 7:58
13. "I Dreamed I Had to Take a Test..." – 1:19
14. "Running Dogs" – 0:38
15. "Four, Three, Two, One" – 1:15
16. "The Big Top" – 2:52
17. "It Was Up in the Mountains" – 2:14
18. "Odd Objects" For light-in-mouth – 4:03
19. "Dr. Miller" (Anderson, Perry Hoberman
    Perry Hoberman
    Perry Hoberman , is an installation artist who has worked extensively with machines and media. His career has included stints with Laurie Anderson and the USC Interactive Media Division....
    
    ) – 5:18
20. "Big Science" – 7:20 see Big Science
    Big Science
    Big Science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups...
    
    
21. "Big Science Reprise" – 1:47

Disc four

1. "Cello Solo" – 2:44
2. "It Tango" – 1:51
3. "Blue Lagoon" – 9:38
4. "Hothead (La Langue d'Amour)" – 4:47
5. "Stiff Neck" – 1:33
6. "Telephone Song" – 1:34
7. "Sweaters" – 3:58
8. "We've Got Four Big Clocks (and they're all ticking)" – 2:24
9. "Song for Two Jims" – 2:56
10. "Over the River" – 3:30
11. "Mach 20" – 2:47 see Mach number
    Mach number
    Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure...
    
    
12. "Rising Sun" – 3:25
13. "The Visitors" – 3:01
14. "The Stranger" – 1:57
15. "Classified" – 5:25
16. "Going Somewhere?" – 0:55
17. "Fireworks" – 2:46
18. "Dog Show" – 0:48
19. "Lighting Out for the Territories" – 3:13 see The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Personnel

• Laurie Anderson
  Laurie Anderson
  Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
  
  – mic stand, violin bows, Tape-bow violin, electric violin, harmonizer, pillow speaker, toy saxophone, voice, Vocoder
  Vocoder
  A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...
  
  , neon violin, glasses, Oberheim OB-X
  Oberheim OB-X
  The Oberheim OB-X is an analog polyphonic synthesizer. It was the first Oberheim synthesizer that was created with internal prewired modules and not with the bulky SEM modules. Because of this, it was more functional for live performance, and therefore more portable. It was introduced in 1979 and...
  
  a, Synclavier
  Synclavier
  The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
  
  , tamboura, telephone, jew's harp
  Jew's harp
  The Jew's harp, jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump or juice harp, is thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world; a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 4th century BC...
  
  
• Peter Gordon – Prophet synthesizer
  Sequential Circuits
  Sequential Circuits Inc. was a California-based synthesizer company that was founded in the early 1970s by Dave Smith and sold to Yamaha Corporation in 1987. The company, throughout its lifespan, pioneered many groundbreaking technologies and design principles that are often taken for granted in...
  
  , voice
• Geraldine Pontius – voice
• Joseph Kos – voice
• Chuck Fisher – clarinet, sax
  Saxophone
  The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
  
  
• Bill Obrecht – flute, sax
• Anne DeMarinis
  Anne DeMarinis
  - Sonic Youth :Anne DeMarinis was in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, for a very brief period from 1981-1982 as a keyboardist. She contributed vocals, along with Kim Gordon, and Thurston Moore, on three Sonic Youth songs performed once, and only live on June 18, 1981. The songs are entitled...
  
   – Oberheim OB-Xa, Synclavier
• David Van Tieghem – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  
• Roma Baran
  Roma Baran
  Roma Baran is a Canadian record producer, best known for her work with Laurie Anderson, Rosalie Sorrels, Annabelle Chvostek and Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Much of her production work is done as a duo with partner Vivian Stoll....
  
   – accordion
  Accordion
  The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
  
  
• Rufus Harley
  Rufus Harley
  Rufus Harley, Jr. was an American jazz musician of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry, known primarily as the first jazz musician to adopt the Scottish great Highland bagpipe as his primary instrument.-Biography:Although born near Raleigh, North Carolina, at an early age Harley moved with...
  
   – bagpipes
  Bagpipes
  Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...
  
  
• Shelley Karson – soprano
  Soprano
  A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
  
  

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1985	The Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... 200	192