Amelia, the latest album by avant garde pioneer Laurie Anderson, tells the story of the final days of the pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, “inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might think about”, Anderson has said. It started life as a live performance in 2000; now, this recording of an updated piece recently premiered in Europe features the likes of Anohni, Marc Ribot and the Filharmonie Brno. In a review of the album, Uncut magazine wrote: “Anderson’s admiration and affection for this feminist icon is such that you come away from Amelia with a greater respect for those who keep on taking risks” – and it’s not hard to see the garlanded personnel on Amelia as a similar sign of admiration and affection for Anderson, a true one of a kind.
Amelia is Anderson’s latest album for Nonesuch, the label she joined in 2001. She’s collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, won the 2017 Venice film festival award for best VR experience, published a collection of her artwork with Rizzoli. Earlier this year, she won the 2024 Stephen Hawking medal for science communication alongside Christopher Nolan and David Attenborough, and the International Astronomical Union named a minor planet in her honour, the Asteroid 270588 AKA Laurieanderson. In recent years, she’s also overseen an AI chatbot of her late husband Lou Reed – and become “hopelessly addicted” to it – as well as unearthing a 1965 Reed demo tape that illuminated the surprising seeds of his musical flourishing. Margaret Atwood is a fan; so, apparently, are teens on TikTok, who made a viral hit out of Anderson’s 1982 surprise smash hit O Superman earlier this year.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg of an incredible career that – with Anderson now 77 – shows no sign of slowing down. You can ask Anderson about any of this, or anything else besides, when she sits for the Guardian’s reader interview. Post your questions in the comments by 10am BST on 14 August.
