Laurie Anderson: Public Service Announcements

Close up of artist Laurie Anderson

For a limited time only, Laurie Anderson’s Personal Service Announcement videos will be available to view together on the Hirshhorn website.

Critically acclaimed musician and artist Laurie Anderson has spent decades making masterpieces out of doing the unexpected. In 1989, when Anderson released her fourth studio album, Strange Angels, Warner Brothers Records asked her to make a music video. Not feeling conceptually inspired by the idea of a music video, Anderson instead created a series of videos to be produced and aired on commercial music television channels like VH-1 and MTV. These videos are now known as the Personal Service Announcements (PSAs) and, by the artist’s own admission, did not have much to do with the songs on the album. Instead the PSAs addressed important issues of the time. Anderson monologues in each about topics as wide-ranging as women’s salaries, military spending, the national debt, and the national anthem.