Can someone explain to me the appeal of Patti Smith?

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the whole RocknRoll Hall of Fame thing got me thinking about it. i've listened to many of her albums, and can honestly say that i think she sucks. not a single song has ever appealed to me. "horses" especially annoys me.

― the table is the table (treesessplode), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:19 (eighteen years ago)

i'm honestly doing this out of interest. i just don't get her and her legions of fans. so please don't hate on me.

― the table is the table (treesessplode), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

Well, there's nothing to discuss, is there?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

She coined the internet meme "hen fap"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

I see "Horses" in Fopp for five pounds, the 2CD version...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:27 (eighteen years ago)

SIGN OF FAILURE

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Thursday, 11 January 2007 16:40 (eighteen years ago)

hen fopp

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 January 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.postmodern.com/~fi/pattipics/images/dreem.gif

― a_p (a_p), Thursday, 11 January 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)

that was the last thing i wanted to see.

plz to ignore this thread, thx.

― the table is the table (treesessplode), Thursday, 11 January 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

I don't have much use for the studio albums either, but I saw her live in '98 and she rocked like a van full of orgy. One of the most dynamic performers I've ever seen, on par with Iggy/Jagger. She deserves it.

― Edward III (edward iii), Thursday, 11 January 2007 20:42 (eighteen years ago)

The version of "My Generation" she does totally opened my eyes and now I'm a fan.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Thursday, 11 January 2007 21:24 (eighteen years ago)

piss factory

― a_p (a_p), Thursday, 11 January 2007 21:34 (eighteen years ago)

Patti Smith vs Patti Smyth
Taking Sides: Patti Smith vs Aerosmith
Patti Smith - Trampin'
steeley dan vs patti smith
POX: Patti Smith.
TS: Patti Smith vs Lux Interior
In Damnation of...Horses by Patti Smith

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 January 2007 21:44 (eighteen years ago)

that anyone would even attempt to pit the Dan against this bitch is unconscionable.

― the table is the table (treesessplode), Thursday, 11 January 2007 22:37 (eighteen years ago)

would you believe...steeleye span?

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 11 January 2007 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

I once dated a girl who played Horses every hour, on the hour. She was hot enough to get away with it.

― Three hundred inches from the children. (goodbra), Thursday, 11 January 2007 23:11 (eighteen years ago)

pics plz

― jambalaya backgammon (grady), Thursday, 11 January 2007 23:15 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, really, how rude, dude.

― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 11 January 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)

she is absolutely dreadful.

in the sense that common consent can bestow "major artist"-itude on artists I don't like, she is the worst "major artist" ever, with the possible exception of the Doors, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues and Pearl Jam.

Chrissie Hynde is Patti Smith done right.

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:13 (eighteen years ago)

I think some of it's good, and some of it's not so good. I think she's overrated, but this thread seems to suggest she's rubbish, which I don't think is the case.

― KeefW (kmw), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)

i dig horses a whole bunch and parts of her other stuff.

she's cool.

― M@tt He1geson: Sassy and I Don't Care Who Knows It (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:26 (eighteen years ago)

i like her too but i'm not sure i can explain why

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:30 (eighteen years ago)

her SNL perf of Gloria is the best thing she ever did and hard to top as a nat'l American TV WTF musical moment.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:31 (eighteen years ago)

gloria is my fave thing by her i think but there isn't a moment of horses i don't love

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:32 (eighteen years ago)

dud for making jane suck blub

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

i used to know jane, she was funny -- i wonder what became of her

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 12 January 2007 00:47 (eighteen years ago)

There's a quality to her voice for me that's hard to describe. "Warm" is the closest I can come but it seems inadequate. Not warm like Anne Murray or someone is warm obviously. Earthy? Warm like earth in the sun? Embracing even when caught up in its own excitement? "Gloria" is great but Easter has always been my favourite, where she finally had tightly written tunes on which to hang her matured voice. Radio Ethiopia is also really good rock that sometimes collapses. Listening a little while ago, I was shocked at how well bits of Gone Again had held up. Solid guitar work and great singing. Just don't come to her stuff looking for punk rock revolution.

― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 12 January 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)

What is "We Three" about? I get the triangle/unrequited-love-from-the-POV-of-the-rejector thing but is she actually in love with the guy's brother or does "wish for your brother" just mean "leave me alone and concern yourself with living in the real world with your fellow man?" I always took it in the latter sense but I wonder now.

― Sundar (sundar), Friday, 12 January 2007 04:39 (eighteen years ago)

PJ Harvey is oft compared to PSmith.

I think they are similar in that "you had to be there, really"

"Dry" vs "Horses"

I only heard "horses" many years after the event so the startling arrival in the face of being so different to what was around was not there. Also diluted by having heard so much of things influenced by "Horses" also.

However, I "understood" dry.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 January 2007 09:19 (eighteen years ago)

PJ's patti smithness is only really significant when you listen to 'songs from the city...', wherein she got seduced by new york and apes patti to an embarassing and inexplicable degree. prior to that she was pulling her own pints, and thems was tasty in the extreme.

that anyone would even attempt to pit the Dan against this bitch is unconscionable

wha...?! I'm not particularly a fan of patti smith, but even so there's just no comparison. 'the dan' are just plain horrible beyond measure, and make me wish music had never been invented.

― mister the guanoman (mister the guanoman), Friday, 12 January 2007 10:21 (eighteen years ago)

why she matters to me (scroll down to get to the patti bit).

add: horses as soundtrack to eleven-year-old MC's discovery of own body and own poetry.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:43 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.southpenquite.co.uk/ewe.jpg

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:46 (eighteen years ago)

I'm off to get that fiver 2CD at Fopp.

Mind you, I haven't started on that SigueSput CD yet

(been backed up, got the Drift as a freebie d/l w/Emusic. Hmm, was expecting more extremety, but was 'what I expected' for some reason)

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

marcello be taking notes from southall.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:49 (eighteen years ago)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:52 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.fakebands.com/graphics/SNL-Candy_Slice.jpg

― Michael J McGonigal (mike mcgonigal), Friday, 12 January 2007 11:54 (eighteen years ago)

What is "We Three" about?

Her love triangle with Tom Verlaine and somebody else, forget who.

Patti's one of my faves, but I've found that it is mostly useless to argue with her detractors. I love her mostly for the emotional delivery in her not-so-technically-good voice, the way it cracks and breaks. Then there's the lyrics, which are often quite good, and her whole channelling-rock-spirits shamanistic live show, which is a joy to behold.

None of this matters in the slightest to people who don't like her, so there ya go...

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Friday, 12 January 2007 19:02 (eighteen years ago)

wha...?! I'm not particularly a fan of patti smith, but even so there's just no comparison. 'the dan' are just plain horrible beyond measure, and make me wish music had never been invented.

-- mister the guanoman (inf...), Today. (mister the guanoman) (link)

more like guanobrains amirite

― friday on the porch (lfam), Friday, 12 January 2007 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

fuck that guy

― ‘•’u (gear), Friday, 12 January 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

Leave me or Ill be just like the others you will meet
They wont act as kindly if they see you on the street
And dont you scream or make a shout
Its nothing you can do about
It was there where you came out
Its a special lack of grace
I can see it in your face

I can see by what you carry that you come from barrytown

― friday on the porch (lfam), Friday, 12 January 2007 20:29 (eighteen years ago)

A thread sure to warm certain black little fire-honouring Patti-loathing hearts in NYC.

xxxpost: The other person was Allen Lanier.

sleeve and Marcello and (to an extent) Edward III otm.

Two consecutive songs at a 1998 show, "Pissing in a River" followed by "Pumping (My Heart)," were and remain the most frightening rock performance I've seen; the only thing I know of that matches it is video footage of Ian Curtis in 1980. She was WAY out there somewhere. I don't think anyone present could have missed it or mistaken it.

― xero (xero), Friday, 12 January 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

I did get that 2CD set version of "Horses" for £5 in Fopp.

That must have been priced wrong, in retrospect.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 12 January 2007 21:15 (eighteen years ago)

more like guanobrains amirite

touché.

― mister the guanoman (mister the guanoman), Friday, 12 January 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

The Easter album came with like, LOADS of free inserts. All very nicely typeset.

I imagine "Rock'n'Roll Nigger" is a v. painful listening experience nowadays.

― Phil Knight (PhilK), Saturday, 3 February 2007 00:03 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

Just heard the new covers album. I surprisingly like it - though I think her twist on Coolio's Gangsters Paradise is really silly. Why not just sing the song straight? What the hell does Pastime Paradise mean? Also, White Rabbit doesn't seem to add anything. OTherwise, I like a lot of the songs. I like the Smells Like Teen Spirit and The Boy in the Bubble songs.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Sunday, 15 April 2007 19:38 (eighteen years ago)

i just heard the new covers disc too. i really like everything, with the exception of "white rabbit" which was boring. her cover of dylan's "changing of the guards" gave me chills, and since street legal is one of the few dylan albums i haven't heard in full i believe i'll be checking it out.

also, my reasons for loving patti are pretty much the same as sleeve's, so OTM to him.

― Emily Bjurnhjam, Sunday, 22 April 2007 06:17 (eighteen years ago)

i don't like any of her music that i've heard but i like her style

― A B C, Sunday, 22 April 2007 06:49 (eighteen years ago)

I think her twist on Coolio's Gangsters Paradise is really silly. Why not just sing the song straight? What the hell does Pastime Paradise mean?

UH yeah there's this guy stevie wonder you might have heard of him

― pretzel walrus, Sunday, 22 April 2007 07:01 (eighteen years ago)

however, i'd like to hear patti covering gangsta's paradise.

even better: i'd like to hear her covering amish paradise.

wait. no i don't.

― Emily Bjurnhjam, Sunday, 22 April 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

explain patti? liek tryna tell a stranger bout a rock&roll

― m coleman, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:07 (eighteen years ago)

She was married to Fred Sonic Smith, there must (have) be(en) something great about her!

― StanM, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:20 (eighteen years ago)

who's Mordechai Shinefield? I smell fake...

― M@tt He1ges0n, Sunday, 22 April 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

re: thread question this recent op-ed in the NYT should help explain.

Ain’t It Strange?
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By PATTI SMITH
Published: March 12, 2007
ON a cold morning in 1955, walking to Sunday school, I was drawn to the voice of Little Richard wailing “Tutti Frutti” from the interior of a local boy’s makeshift clubhouse. So powerful was the connection that I let go of my mother’s hand.

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Forum: Popular Music
Rock ’n’ roll. It drew me from my path to a sea of possibilities. It sheltered and shattered me, from the end of childhood through a painful adolescence. I had my first altercation with my father when the Rolling Stones made their debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Rock ’n’ roll was mine to defend. It strengthened my hand and gave me a sense of tribe as I boarded a bus from South Jersey to freedom in 1967.

Rock ’n’ roll, at that time, was a fusion of intimacies. Repression bloomed into rapture like raging weeds shooting through cracks in the cement. Our music provided a sense of communal activism. Our artists provoked our ascension into awareness as we ran amok in a frenzied state of grace.

My late husband, Fred Sonic Smith, then of Detroit’s MC5, was a part of the brotherhood instrumental in forging a revolution: seeking to save the world with love and the electric guitar. He created aural autonomy yet did not have the constitution to survive all the complexities of existence.

Before he died, in the winter of 1994, he counseled me to continue working. He believed that one day I would be recognized for my efforts and though I protested, he quietly asked me to accept what was bestowed — gracefully — in his name.

Today I will join R.E.M., the Ronettes, Van Halen and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the eve of this event I asked myself many questions. Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution? Should laurels be offered? Am I a worthy recipient?

I have wrestled with these questions and my conscience leads me back to Fred and those like him — the maverick souls who may never be afforded such honors. Thus in his name I will accept with gratitude. Fred Sonic Smith was of the people, and I am none but him: one who has loved rock ’n’ roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard.

Because its members will be the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented.

Human history abounds with idealistic movements that rise, then fall in disarray. The children of light. The journey to the East. The summer of love. The season of grunge. But just as we seem to repeat our follies, we also abide.

Rock ’n’ roll drew me from my mother’s hand and led me to experience. In the end it was my neighbors who put everything in perspective. An approving nod from the old Italian woman who sells me pasta. A high five from the postman. An embrace from the notary and his wife. And a shout from the sanitation man driving down my street: “Hey, Patti, Hall of Fame. One for us.”

I just smiled, and I noticed I was proud. One for the neighborhood. My parents. My band. One for Fred. And anybody else who wants to come along.

Patti Smith is a poet and performer.

― m coleman, Sunday, 22 April 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

five years pass...

A few more Patti Smith anecdotes in the book "In the Seventies: Adventures in the Counter-Culture" by Miles, including:

There was a press reception at the Intercontinental Hotel but Patti appeared to be on amphetamine or something, and behaved badly, walking about on tables, kicking other people's food and drinks on the floor, shouting and laughing loudly. She had been angered by the reception afforded to 'Radio Ethiopia' by the notoriously fickle and opinionated British press. When one journo asked why her tickets weren't selling, she shouted "Fuck you! You're a drag. Get out of here" and tried to throw food at him. This was of course what the press men wanted. "Which Beatles newsreel are you acting now?" shouted one.

This as when Patti climbed on the table. "I'm the Field Marshall of Rock 'n' Roll" she told them. "I'm fucking declaring war! The guitar is my machine gun" and she stalked from the room. It was a pity she had not yet learned to play her guitar which up to that point she used as a symbol, not an instrument.

― Bob Six, Sunday, 23 September 2012 11:19 (thirteen years ago)

thought this revive was gonna be about the new Levi's commercial w/ the Patti Smith knockoff voiceover

― some dude, Sunday, 23 September 2012 11:42 (thirteen years ago)

Rather patronising comment from Miles there. Bad behaviour is cool when male rock stars do it, but this woman should know her place! And she hasn't even learned to play guitar, tsk. It's not like male rock stars ever use it as a symbol after all...
I don't give a fuck how good Patti's guitar playing his - watching her make some noise and pull the strings off one by one is way more exciting than some boring fart noodling away.

― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Sunday, 23 September 2012 13:48 (thirteen years ago)

oh c'mon if you say "the guitar is my machine gun" when you don't actually know how to play it that's an open goal, it's not 'rockist' to point it out

― some dude, Sunday, 23 September 2012 13:51 (thirteen years ago)

It is a daft thing to say, but then Patti has quite a healthy sense of her own ridiculousness.

― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Sunday, 23 September 2012 14:11 (thirteen years ago)

not that ILM cares, but her new album (Banga) is really good, maybe even as good as Gone Again.

― sleeve, Sunday, 23 September 2012 15:38 (thirteen years ago)

I'd agree with that. Saw her live a couple of weeks back and she was on fantastic form, passionate, funny and full of energy.

― Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. (Stew), Sunday, 23 September 2012 15:49 (thirteen years ago)

yes that Levis advert is so so so terrible and painful

― Jamie_ATP, Sunday, 23 September 2012 16:14 (thirteen years ago)

LOLs at pretzel walrus taking the bait upthread,

― Chewshabadoo, Sunday, 23 September 2012 16:24 (thirteen years ago)

I posted in the other thread, but yeah, the new albums is really good, and that probably even would even apply to people who barely know who she is. I know I was shocked.

― dlp9001, Saturday, 29 September 2012 01:45 (thirteen years ago)

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