Patti Smith – Horses (Vinyl)
Sony Music / Legacy / Arista Records (1975 / This Pressing 2015)

2 reviews for Patti Smith – Horses (Vinyl)
Sony Music / Legacy / Arista Records (1975 / This Pressing 2015)

1. 

   5 out of 5

   Geoff – June 19, 2021

   'Horses' is a true work of art ~ a landmark recording that speaks volumes and remains timeless in it’s unbridled beauty. Rock poet, Patti Smith is one of the most talented, influential female musicians of our time. Her ability to combine expressive poetry with the power of rock’n’roll ranks up there with Bob Dylan, and she was a forerunner in the original punk movement. ‘Horses’ was produced by former Velvet Underground man, John Cale. It is a true work of art ~ a landmark recording that speaks volumes and remains timeless in it’s unbridled beauty. Wholly embraced by the press and “underground / beat” generation, ‘Horses’ presented Patti’s challenging, lyrical tomes alongside lengthy, improvisational pieces and thumping garage rock cover versions. IT begins with Van Morrison’s chestnut, “Gloria”, which Smith makes her own. The reggae tinged “Redondo Beach” precedes perhaps the finest track “Birdland” which is an incredible “stream-of-consciousness” poetic piece, full of emotion and beauty. It captures Smith at her creative best, engrossing the listener with her imaginative, colourful ravings. Other highlights include the literally chest-beating “Break It Up” and compelling centrepiece “Land” ~ a trilogy of intertwined numbers, which includes a unique interpretation of the party favourite “Land Of A Thousand Dances”. Intense and sincere, “Land” recedes to a bare spoken / sung lyric before the gentle, haunting “Elegie” brings the original LP to a perfect end. ‘Horses’ is a bold, passionate, intellectual, and empowering album, which stretched boundaries and assured Patti Smith’s iconic future in the worlds of art, music and word.
2. 

   5 out of 5

   AMG – June 19, 2021

   Patti's improvisatory song structures worked with her free verse to create something like a new spoken word/musical art form 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.”