Song · Laurie Anderson
“Excellent Birds” by Laurie Anderson
From the album Mister Heartbreak (1984)
“Excellent Birds” by Laurie Anderson appears on 2 radio countdowns from 1 station between 2002 and 2003. It was first released in 1984 on the album Mister Heartbreak. Its best result is #272 on the Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #3,895 alternative song of all time.
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"Excellent Birds" is the meeting point on Laurie Anderson's 1984 album Mister Heartbreak, a duet she wrote, produced and sang with Peter Gabriel. The two had first crossed paths in the spring of 1983, when Gabriel caught her performance piece United States and came away wanting to collaborate on a video project showing off both of their work.
What they made is art rock at its most playful and precise: Anderson and Gabriel both on Synclavier, Gabriel programming the drum machine, Bill Laswell on bass and Nile Rodgers slipping in guitar, with Leanne Ungar engineering. Gabriel liked it enough to rework it for his own So album in 1986 as "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)", which the original vinyl left off but the cassette and CD closed with.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 1402 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (July 2002) | 2002 |
| 2003 | 272 | Fred (XM 44) | Fred XM Top 2044 Songs of All-Time (July 2003) | 2044 |
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