Album · Laurie Anderson
Mister Heartbreak by Laurie Anderson
Mister Heartbreak is an album by Laurie Anderson, released in 1984. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 5 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Excellent Birds”, on 2 lists with a best position of #272.
Mister Heartbreak, Laurie Anderson's second album, hit the racks on Warner Bros. on February 14, 1984, and the New York performance artist who had crashed the British charts with "O Superman" set out this time to make a record that could stand up without the pictures. She shares the production credit with Bill Laswell, Roma Baran and Peter Gabriel, runs a Synclavier through every track, and actually sings more, instead of leaning on the pitch-shifted voices of Big Science.
The result is art rock with a pulse, and some of these songs are, by her own account, far more personal: love songs, in their odd way. "Sharkey's Day" opens the record with a rubbery strut, and "Sharkey's Night" hands the mic to William S. Burroughs. "Excellent Birds", co-written and sung with Gabriel, came out of a standoff: they couldn't agree on the bass line, so each released a version, his turning up on the CD of So.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Mister Heartbreak on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Excellent Birds | 2 | #272 | – | 2002–2003 | |
| 2 | Sharkey's Night | 2 | #390 | – | 1989–1991 | |
| 3 | Sharkey's Day | 1 | #1678 | – | 2003 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.