This half sung, half spoken epic was taken from Anderson's 7-hour multi media project "United States 1-V."
The vocal was spoken through a vocoder to get the distorted sound. Vocoders are devices that can turn analog sounds into a digital output, completely transforming the input signal. They were popular in the '70s and '80s among musicians looking for a futuristic effect. You can hear it on "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra and "Radio Ga Ga" by Queen. Anderson told Uncut magazine about her use of the vocoder. "It's one of my favorite instruments," she said. "I guess I've just always been a geek, and I do love that it's so mellifluous and I liked especially that it was a coding device in World War II, that's its origin. And O Superman was a kind of code. It used a lot of slogans, of the 'have a nice day' and the US Postal slogan variety."
The 8 minute single release became a hit in the UK after being championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. To date it is the only hit record by a performance artist.
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