Horses [Remastered] - Patti Smith

Advantages: Too few to mention
Disadvantages: Overlong, Arty, Precious

ARTIST: Patti Smith ALBUM: Horses (1975) LABEL: Arista Well, I've not reviewed any albums on here yet that I don't like, so here's a first. "Horses" by Patti Smith always seems to feature prominently in those Greatest Albums Of All Time lists and most people who like the sort of music I like seem to love it. So why am I not jumping on one of the longest musical bandwagons going? Answer, it's just not a very good record. Dealing with the positives ...
...anyone should be able to polish a turd it is him; having done such a good job of making Lou Reed sound so interesting back in 1967 on The Velvet Underground & Nico. Patti Smith has the odd interesting lyrical idea and at times a distinctive pre-punk voice. Also some of the musical ideas are impressive when you consider the album is nearly thirty years old. So what is the problem? Well firstly, virtually every track on the album is at least a minute ... Read review

Advantages: see review
Disadvantages: see review

...own personal favourite track on Horses must be 'Birdland'. The lyrics evoke some powerful visual images and Patti Smith's voice starting off just talking then building up to a violent crescendo still sends a shiver down my spine. The small boy in the song, that is standing in a corn field on a hot summers day is supposedly the young, French 19th century poet Arthur Rimbaud who has always been a iconic figure to many songwriters (Jim Morrison, Morrissey) ...
...in the mid 70's when Horses was first released rock music was dominated by the almost exclusively macho male groups like Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Pink Floyd, The Who and the list goes on. With 'Horses' Patti Smith led the way for countless female artist that followed her. Her devotion to the purpose in her music and the importance of the lyrics made many people start to take female rock artist seriously for the first time and trend, which was to ... Read review

Advantages: Passionate debut
Disadvantages: nothin' comes to mind

The first time I came across Patti Smith was on the B.B.C. 2 music show “The Old Grey Whistle Test”, I can’t remember the year but I think it was round the middle of the 70’s. I remember she was strangely dressed for being on stage, wearing a big coat and hat on stage. I thought strange what’s all this about and then she proceeded to perform the track “Land” which is in 3 parts, horses, land of a 1,000 dances ...
...the all out assault on the senses that Ms Smith performed. The performance that I witnessed was incredible; she was jumping up and down, throwing herself around the floor and this was for the full length of the song and runs at nearly 10 minutes long. After watching this on T.V. I thought to myself I got to get a copy of this album, the next I preceded to my nearest “music emporium”, I asked the shop assistant if they had this title ... Read review