Patti Smith "Land (1975-2002)"

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Ok, so I’m not one of the impressive essayists here in ILM, I usually pop in with a would-be pithy comment here and there, but I’ve found a reason to weigh in with a little writing on "Land (1975-2002)", Patti Smith’s newly released career retrospective.

I bought her records as a child. Really, I was probably 12 years old when I bought "Horses" and the rest. I heard "Because the Night" on rock radio, read about Patti in Creem magazine, saw posters of her for sale in a novelty shop at the Jersey shore. She was a rock star, right? I wrote Patti Smith Group with ballpoint pen on my blue 3-ring binder in junior high school. The fact that nobody else knew who she was didn’t faze me. I’m listening to the box set as I write this and I’m realizing Patti is the artist who means the most to me, who has shaped my consciousness the most, who makes me feel the deepest. These songs, listened to continuously throughout most of my life, have meaning and importance that I couldn’t even try to put into words.

Listening to "Gloria" again for what could be the thousandth time, I’m still astounded by what she pulls off. From the iconoclastic opening that’s been quoted to death, she embarks on a poem set to bare rock music, but she’s really transported, singing with a commitment that only comes from being truly blessed with the spirit… and the listener is transported as well, it’s wild. But wait!! Suddenly, the song careens into Them’s "Gloria" and we’re blasted off into a realm that’s all art, poetry, and pure rock and roll that’s unlike anything I had ever imagined as kid, unlike anything anyone back then imagined, and it still works, goddam does it work. I sat grinning on the edge of the sofa, completely excited and into it, as I am every time I hear the track.

These moments happen over and over on "Land", the perfect "Dancing Barefoot", the awesome "Pissing in a River", "Rock and Roll Nigger"… so exciting, so transporting… I’m smiling, rocking out, and almost crying at the same time, and realizing Patti Smith is my favorite artist of all time. The cherry-picked new stuff is all superb too… for an artist who deals in inspiration more than craft, her continued level of artistry is amazing and inspiring.

Oh yeah, there’s a disc of unreleased stuff too, and it’s great, but no "Hey Joe", no "My Generation", but it’s all good. The second disc is why I bought the set, but it’s the songs on the first disc that made me want to write this now. The packaging, booklet and audio quality are all outstanding, too.

So this is a recommendation; if you’re not acquainted with one of our greatest living artists, here’s a great introduction. If you’re a fan, you still need this. And if you can’t stand her, well it’s not going to bother me, because nothing can describe my feeling for Patti Smith except love. My life has been impossibly enriched by this music.

― Sean, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

sean, you are lovely.

― owen hatherley, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ok, so I’m not one of the impressive essayists here in ILM

Not any more you're not. Expand and revise this and send it to Tom for FT pronto.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(or semi-pronto, seeing as he's in france for a week)

― mark s, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just picked up 75-02 about fivehours ago and it is super.This is a great package for the long time fan as well as the people just discovering Patti for the first(those who must live under rocks) time.In 1978 Patti Smith visited my high school and read some of her work.She was a good friend of my history teacher.I must admit, after seeing her in person it took my fantasy a bit further as far as the Easter album cover.I must have gone thru four or five copies(covers) of that LP.Ah,to be a teenager!

― Jim Hargraves, Saturday, 23 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

damn you sean - the fuckers aren't releasing this in oz for another 4 mweeks and i'm creaming my pants in anticipation.

― Queen G, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh, she's too rough and I'm too delicate...(than on the sand, another man...)

― erik, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry Sean BUT I must say I laughed when, a couple of years ago, I picked a copy of Horses from my local record library. Got home, listened to it. The first reaction was: 'Can I have back the 90p I paid to rent this record out for two weeks, please!'

There's a lot of goodwill towards her because she's a woman, I think. Because there's nothing that stunning on that album. And it's not poetry but lyrics. And by saying that I'm not saying that lyrics are a lower 'artform' or anything like that. But what's she's written isn't that special either.

― Julio Desouza, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ahhhh, don't listen to the naysayers, Sean...we still know that it's GRATE. (Julio, I know you're a bit grouchy about a lot of things that aren't jazz, but you like other things, so I'd probably be interested in more detailed rationale as to why you didn't like it. Personally, I'd think hearing it for the first time nearly 25 years after the fact would remove it somewhat from the historical context, which gave it a bit more weight at the time. I guess the content of the "poetry"/lyrics is certainly up for debate, but it was certainly strong stuff for the times and really broke a lot of ground for women recording in the 70s, and laid the foundations for other female artists through the 80s and 90s--there's definitely a lot of what Smith did in more recent artists like P.J.Harvey (maybe not a good thing in yr books, but certainly is in mine). If you haven't heard any of the rest of her albums, it's certainly worth checking Radio Ethiopia if you're interested in a more stripped-down muscular rock style, or Gone Again if you're looking for something a bit more complex overall.)

― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ps. Sean: more details on second disc pliz.

― Sean Carruthers, Sunday, 24 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sean- I didn't like it because I expected it the sound to be more awesome than what it was. The woman and her band just stuck to the rock beat. That woulda been fine if the riffs were corrosive enough but it wasn't because that might have overshadowed her poetry/lyrics.

'it was certainly strong stuff for the times and really broke a lot of ground for women recording in the 70s, and laid the foundations for other female artists through the 80s and 90s'

Were you there Sean- was it really strong stuff for the times. I can imagine 'Sister Ray' being strong stuff but not this.

The point of her being a breakthrough is surely not true. She might have been the first in rock but if it wasn't her it would have been somebody else. Diamanda Galas (not a rock artist I suppose) is someone I really admire and yes, I don't like PJ Harvey either.

I'm not just into Jazz. In fact I think a lot of music ages badly (and a lot that ages well), a lot of which includes Jazz. All I'm saying is some of this stuff is overrated.

― Julio Desouza, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in context it was a breakthrough for its simplicity and its easy looseness: also — v.hard indeed to pick up on THIS now — its the casual yeah-maybe-who-cares of its queerness

― mark s, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'in context it was a breakthrough for its simplicity and its easy looseness'

If you're saying= 'as the world was gripped by prog' then it's simple rock would have surely been 'refreshing' to hear but not a 'breakthrough'.

'its the casual yeah-maybe-who-cares of its queerness'

So what you seem to be saying (probably wrong here) is that she was having fun when everyone was very serious abt 'things'. Is that correct? If so then that's not much, is it?

― Julio Desouza, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

She sucked all the hormones out of "When Doves Cry."

― nathalie, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nathalie - is that good or bad?

― Queen G, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Were you there Sean- was it really strong stuff for the times. I can imagine 'Sister Ray' being strong stuff but not this.

Well, I wasn't there as much as I could have been...pretty young. But I wasn't too young to realize that it was fairly strong stuff for a female artist at that particular moment, with most of the rest of the women in rock at that time really taking the soft approach, like Joni Mitchell or Melissa Manchester or Stevie Nicks, etc. (Janis Joplin had been underground for 5 years, and Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane were already doing a whackload of ballads instead of being heavy.) Then along comes Patti and grabs rock by the balls, so to speak. I repeat: it does not sound particularly convincing now, with people like Lydia Lunch and Diamanda Galas in our past, but you really shouldn't underestimate its value at that time.

I know you're not, but I know you use a lot of it as a touchstone, that's all. Actually, I appreciate your breadth (so to speak).

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Whoops, tag got lost...that was supposed to read: I'm not just into Jazz. In fact I think a lot of music ages badly (and a lot that ages well), a lot of which includes Jazz. All I'm saying is some of this stuff is overrated.

I know you're not, but I know you use a lot of it as a touchstone, that's all. Actually, I appreciate your breadth (so to speak).

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sean- Fair enough.

I'll ckeck out 'Radio Ethiopia' sometime. My whole opinion on Patti is based on 'Horses' alone so getting her second album might give me a fresh perspective.

― Julio Desouza, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was a little little kid, like 6 or 7, I had a fisherprice turntable and a huge pile of my Dad's old records. weird shit: aftermath, hawaiian steel guitars, goofy greats, the coasters, cream, stompin tom connors, fleetwood mac etc. I was only an only child and those records were sometimes my sisters and brothers and I talked to them and made up stories about the characters from the songs and the singers and the album covers. I built up elaborate daydreams about them. Hearing "Horses" years later I knew I was listening to someone who had done the same things. I don't know if I've heard another voice like that.

― fritz, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I guess what I mean is I've always liked how her fandom esp. Keith & Dylan fixations were cool. It's so hard to be a cool rock fan. Maybe the only rock star who identified as a fan herself? She talked about the sexual imagination of a fan in a really really interesting way, fearlessly verging into the creepy and masturbatory without ever parodying or downplaying it. I also liked how her frenzied hornygirl fandom included intellectual heroes too - the whole Rimbaud and Baudelaire as Rolling Stones thing.

& how she took songs that were familiar/invisible (gloria, land of 1,000 dances) and made them personal mythology.

― fritz, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The cover art on Horses is just about the coolest iconic rock star presentation ever. I still remember the jolt I felt the first time I saw it in a store back in 1975. It cannot be overstated how unlike anything else at the time it was. However, I've never cared one bit for Patti Smith's music or poetry. I really expected to, based on all I had seen and heard about her. I even liked her band's backing on Horses alright, it was just her: All guts, no talent. Sorry.

― Curt, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, there's this crazy essay she wrote about going to a Stones concert in about '71 that I always loved...

I think pitching 'Horses' as a "breakthrough for its time" is underselling it, or maybe rather setting it up to fail. You don't hear the stuff that shocked people at the time now, because it was really just sugarcoating on what is essentially a classic traditionalist rock album. Patti Smith is like Jim Morrison with taste: she plugged into the rock-as-romanticism connection that, imho, underlies all the best music in the genre. The main appeal of Horses is her persona as androgynous-bohemian-poet-rocker-visionary, inseparable from the classic cover shot. Aside from that, she has a good, flexible band: they rock hard on short stuff, stretch out on the poetic jams and throw in a little reggae too.

There was a long profile on her in the New Yorker recently. The interesting angle it had was the separation between her musical persona and her actual life; she said that people expect her to be some kind of Rimbaud figure out there on the edge (which is why they found it so weird when she went off into domestic seclusion for a decade), and she's not. Interesting because living-the-myth has always been an integral part of that particular persona, part of the deal you make with the audience... Of course that persona has always been 50% bullshit too; I think being a woman probably helped her maintain some distance from it.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nathalie - is that good or bad?
Depends. If you like kinkiness, I'd suggest sticking with the original. Personally I dislike Patti. Richard Hell was better at marrying literature, sex and rock. But hey that's my opinion.

― nathalie, Monday, 25 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nebbermind, went out and grabbed a copy when I saw how cheap it was. Worth it if only to have "Piss Factory" on a handy SEE DEE, and for the cover of "When Doves Cry".

― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 27 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ten years pass...

Banga is surprisingly awesome!

― jalapeno kloppers (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:53 (thirteen years ago)

NEW THREAD BUTTON, WHAT THE HELL IS WROnG WITH YOU htosuidhPOEPLE

― paradiastole, or the currifauel, otherwise called (thomp), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 21:59 (thirteen years ago)

it's good? i haven't really paid attention to patti since ... umm the 90s? verlaine plays on it, right?

― tylerw, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:03 (thirteen years ago)

it's really really good!

― sleeve, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:13 (thirteen years ago)

yep verlaine's on it...but it's sort of more flowing atmospheric in general, not a super guitar record or anything, but the arrangements and instrumentation is cool

― jalapeno kloppers (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:15 (thirteen years ago)

i trust u guys. i was just reading an interview with lenny kaye, he seems like a cool dude w/ a lot of good stories.

― tylerw, Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:17 (thirteen years ago)

thomp your wish is my command

Patti Smith - Banga (2012)

― jalapeno kloppers (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 26 September 2012 22:18 (thirteen years ago)

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