Patti Smith – Horses (180g Vinyl)
It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics -- all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith is a rock critic's dream, a poet as steeped in '60s garage rock as she is in French Symbolism; "Land" carries on from the Doors' "The End," marking her as a successor to Jim Morrison, while the borrowed choruses of "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances" are more in tune with the era of sampling than they were in the '70s. Producer John Cale respected Smith's primitivism in a way that later producers did not, and the loose, improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form: Horses was a hybrid, the sound of a post-Beat poet, as she put it, "dancing around to the simple rock & roll song." – AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann
Tracklist
A1. In Excelsis Deo / Gloria (Version) (05:54)
A2. Redondo Beach (03:27)
A3. Birdland (09:15)
A4. Free Money (03:52)
B1. Kimberly (04:26)
B2. Break It Up (04:02)
B3. Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer(de) (09:28)
B4. Elegie (02:42)
Cat no: 88875111731
It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics -- all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith is a rock critic's dream, a poet as steeped in '60s garage rock as she is in French Symbolism; "Land" carries on from the Doors' "The End," marking her as a successor to Jim Morrison, while the borrowed choruses of "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances" are more in tune with the era of sampling than they were in the '70s. Producer John Cale respected Smith's primitivism in a way that later producers did not, and the loose, improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form: Horses was a hybrid, the sound of a post-Beat poet, as she put it, "dancing around to the simple rock & roll song." – AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann
Tracklist
A1. In Excelsis Deo / Gloria (Version) (05:54)
A2. Redondo Beach (03:27)
A3. Birdland (09:15)
A4. Free Money (03:52)
B1. Kimberly (04:26)
B2. Break It Up (04:02)
B3. Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer(de) (09:28)
B4. Elegie (02:42)
Cat no: 88875111731
It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics -- all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Smith is a rock critic's dream, a poet as steeped in '60s garage rock as she is in French Symbolism; "Land" carries on from the Doors' "The End," marking her as a successor to Jim Morrison, while the borrowed choruses of "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances" are more in tune with the era of sampling than they were in the '70s. Producer John Cale respected Smith's primitivism in a way that later producers did not, and the loose, improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form: Horses was a hybrid, the sound of a post-Beat poet, as she put it, "dancing around to the simple rock & roll song." – AllMusic Review by William Ruhlmann
Tracklist
A1. In Excelsis Deo / Gloria (Version) (05:54)
A2. Redondo Beach (03:27)
A3. Birdland (09:15)
A4. Free Money (03:52)
B1. Kimberly (04:26)
B2. Break It Up (04:02)
B3. Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer(de) (09:28)
B4. Elegie (02:42)
Cat no: 88875111731
