Horses

iTunes Review

Patti Smith’s 1975 debut album serves as the ultimate precursor to the punk-new wave onslaught of the late 1970s. From the opening salvo of Van Morrison’s “Gloria” where, over gentle piano chords, Smith intones, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine,” Horses announces itself as an unapologetically pretentious and artistically audacious album. It's a one-of-a-kind free thinking, stream-of-consciousness collection of tunes that pays homage to rock n’ roll’s short history while defining its own creative ground. Smith had made a modest stir as a poet and writer in rock magazines during the early ‘70s but would never be confused with an accomplished singer. She uses her limited voice strategically, slipping into a fast-rapping sing-speak that combines poetic images with a hipster’s gait, eventually climaxing with the multiple vocal tracks that drive the nine-minute “Birdland.” “Free Money” builds to a thunderous garage rock vamp, while Wilson Pickett’s “Land of a Thousand Dances” is turned from an uptempo R&B dance number into a dark, foreboding piece of post-Jim Morrison psychedelic horror. This edition adds her live cover of the Who’s “My Generation” that appeared as the b-side to “Gloria.”