Patti Smith, then as now, as powerful as ever
THE CD: “Patti Smith Horses/Horses” (Arista/Columbia/Legacy)
PERFORMER: Patti Smit
This album was high on my playlist back in the early 1980s. It sounded great, blasting out from my old tube amp stereo. Smith wasn’t the first woman to front a garage band by any means, but she brought literary tradition and intelligence to punk. I never regretted missing the punk thing, but Smith and company made me wonder.
This 30th anniversary release includes a remastered first disc of “Horses,” with a second disc featuring a live reworking of “Horses” from the Meltdown Festival in London. On my first listen, I was a little disappointed. Vinyl is alive; CDs aren’t (and ne’er the twang shall meet). No matter. How many thrash bands have come and gone since these guys? “My Generation” is a pretty faithful turbocharging of the Who original, with Smith front and center on the edge of the abyss. Like she said in 1975: “We created it, let’s take over.”
The live versions of the original tunes, recorded in London in 2005, features Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daughtery from the original band, along with Flea, Tom Verlaine and Tony Shanahan.
Smith’s voice is deeper, and the Lou Reed cadence is intact, but the pace isn’t quite as frenetic. Age, perhaps. Thirty years down the road, “My Generation” takes on new meaning: “We had dreams, man,” Smith roars, “and we f***ing created George Bush…Make change, the world is yours”
Smith endures. Buy this or not, but play it loud.
— By Paul Gartner
