Patti Smith CD review

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins/but not mine.” They tried to fuck with this seminal release a bit, but those are still the opening lines. Patti Smith was already a minor star when the New York punk bands were starting their revolution, but their macho credo remains hers, nonetheless. Deconstructing Them’s and therefore Van Morrison’s “Gloria” wasn’t a castration of trad rock values as much as a reappropriation.

Sure, it wouldn’t last, just as punk wouldn’t, but the crater of Smith’s impact, no matter how narrow in circumference, remains as deep as any. On this two-disc, Deluxe Edition of the monumental Horses, her non-committal snarl remains as unsettling as the androgynous artwork to the point where you wonder why we needed PJ Harvey at all. The answer to the last question is no one was playing Patti Smith in 1991 — even Kim Gordon starting becoming a sex symbol then — but that makes Horses no less vital. Lenny Kaye’s manic guitar rambles its psychosis just as fervently, and Richard Sohl’s piano betrays classical pop for rock ‘n’ roll then back again, mirroring the boundary busting like the patients at an asylum break.

Still, there’s the inescapable knowledge that Patti Smith’s debut didn’t exactly cure anything. Madonna’s ass still dominates the liners of her new album, Britney Spears — though exponentially more successful — has become the concubine of her backup-dancer beau, and even Fiona Apple has allowed a myth to overshadow her convictions in making her once “lost” album.

They probably say things about Chuck Berry’s influence, too. (For this set, Horses has been issued with a 2005, sequentially accurate live reproduction of the album.)