Laurie Anderson - The Ugly One with the Jewels and Other Stories

Wonderful Laurie

This is one of my favorite cds by Laurie Anderson. The other reviews pretty much cover it. For me there is not only humor but poignance, magic, wonder and perhaps a bit of the sublime. May 4, 2008

Great sampler

It's a great collaboration, but I only listen to Laurie Anderson and William S. Burroughs on this CD -- I can't really handle the yelling guy... November 30, 2007

A Mental Movie

I regard Laurie Anderson as the most important multimedia performance artist of the late twentieth century and enjoy the contradiction of her mistrust and articulate dissection of technology with the large-scale deployment of cutting edge electronics and digital gizmos in her own work, notably in United States I-IV. This to my mind remains her finest achievement and spawned the essential album Big Science. Exhibitions of her mixed media work are also highly recommended.
Laurie Anderson describes the tour of these readings from her book, Stories From The Nerve Bible, as "the most low-tech show I've ever done. I sat on the stage with keyboards, digital effects machines, a violin and a twenty-four input mixing console and mixed the sound myself."
Reduced even further to just an audio track on a CD the collection becomes even more intimate and engaging; "a kind of mental movie", as she describes it in the sleeve notes, a movie of stories that cover twenty years of her work as an artist, told with guile and craft and not a little warmth and humour from this remarkable performer August 20, 2005

A Rembrandt of the spoken word

This spoken word CD is absolutely incredible. By all means, anyone who appreciates the spoken word should own this, " The Ugly One With The Jewels." Her words are accompanied with music, as only Anderson could create; however, I consider this more of a spoken word creation.

The beauty is subtle. The sledgehammer is gentle in its persuasion. Laurie Anderson is at her best. I'm familiar with a couple of her creations, and this is a stand out production.

I used to be more of an artist than I am now, and this CD makes me regret some of my life decisions. Not fully, but this is just amazing in its presentation. Listen to her words, and you will be thinking. She is a philosopher of the twentieth century. Anderson is accessible without being overly "deep." Her words are easily felt and aknowledged by anyone with compassion and a sense of humor.

This is a must have by any standards. I wonder what she and Henry Rollins would have created? February 23, 2005

A Classic!

An incredible work! If you love Laurie Anderson or even if you aren't familiar with her work, this work is a masterpiece in story telling. Get it. You'll find yourself listening again and again! October 10, 2001

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