Post a controversial music opinion

Re: Patti Smith, mentioned upthread, I think she might be the single most overpraised and absolutely talentless “musicians” I’ve ever heard. I’ve tried dozens of times and dozens of albums, and my conclusion is always the same: Patti Smith sucks.

Duran's debut and Rio don't sound like Japan.

The arrangement on "Planet Earth" is practically cribbed from "Quiet Life"!

table i got blasted for saying basically the same thing a year or so ago. love patti as a strong figure, but the music just isn't that good. fist bumps to you, friend.

on that note: morrissey's cover of "redondo beach" is better than patti's og.

but also, fuck morrissey relentlessly.

I am not sure the pop/rock distinction holds much water any more.

I like a few of Patti Smith's tuneful songs like "Frederick", "Dancing Barefoot", "Redondo Beach", "Because the Night" but most of the big production numbers sound like the Doors without a sense of humour.

I quote honestly think it's all terrible. How many times i had to fucking grit my teeth through 'Horses' when I was younger, thank god I stopped being friends with people who enjoy that shit.

Candy Slice, on the other hand, will live for fucking ever.

'Horses' is ... idk ... charitably I would compare it to "camp"? ... I do like 'Free Money' a bit, but Tracy Chapman's 'Fast Car' is vastly superior imo

In other words, if I never heard Patti Smith's music again, I wouldn't mind.

Candy Slice, on the other hand, will live for fucking ever.

...and also Andrea Martin as Patti Smith: "Inside of myself, I feel a scab... inside of myself, I feel caressed..."

My controversial opinion is that I really like Patti Smith. Easter is my favourite.

maybe if I had been born 10 years earlier than I was, I would feel about Patti Smith the way I do about Sinead O'Connor, in that, Lion and the Cobra is all time, despite other things ...

No way Smith never wrote anything as great a song as "Mandinka"

<3

Not a big Smith fan at all, but I saw one of her first NYC comeback shows in the late 90s or early 2000s (can't remember now) and it was a weirdly joyous experience. I say "weirdly" because I usually don't go to the kind of shows where the audience is palpably love-bombing the performer onstage from beginning to end; I would compare it to seeing Perfume in 2014. But I don't ever, ever, ever listen to her records (owned Horses on cassette in high school, liked it a little; owned Radio Ethiopia at some point but never even made it to the end of the first side).

Conflicted on Smith, but saw her at Summerstage last year and she was amazing, a force beyond anything I expected.

I always liked using the word “Group” like Patti Smith Group Pat Metheny Group, it has an impersonal technical resonance to it, like an architecture studio or something lol

Donnie Wahlberg should burn more carpets

owned Radio Ethiopia at some point but never even made it to the end of the first side

Then you missed "Pumping," which is my favorite concise Patti rocker. The rest of that side gets pretty aimless and noodly though. I'm not a big fan at all, but I like bits and pieces of her first four albums (I wonder if I still even own Wave?)

They did not quote rock out unquote. They were far too sophisticated and musically adventurous to be a rock band.

blondie does lots of things, but they are absolutely a rock band, especially on their first two albums

I love Horses all the way through, but after that it’s slim pickings for me. But man, Horses is so fucking good. I love it when she goes into “DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PONEEEE”

But the sophistication and adventurousness, voodoo chili

someone should tell clem burke that he doesn't rock out

Am I the only person who admires Dream of Life?

Horses and Easter are my favorites (and are all-time great I think). More recently I've really liked Gone Again and Peace and Noise. I remember liking Dream of Life at the time, but as with a lot of 80s music I wonder how much I would in retrospect. Anyway she is a relic, in a good way

Yeah, Dream of Life wasn't a favourite of mine but I loved Gone Again and Peace and Noise.

Again, I think all of them are shit. Her mystique is shit, and JFC that song that she often ends her sets with (still?) is abhorrent. Her poetry is garbage, and she just won a $100,000 award for it. Repulsive person, repellant music.

I think you may be going a little far(?) I’m not a fan of her music myself, but everything I’ve heard about her as a person is that she’s really cool.

Gone Again was my intro, precipitating my purchase of Horses. Too long but "Beneath the Southern Cross" is a top five Smith ballad.

I think you may be going a little far(?) I’m not a fan of her music myself, but everything I’ve heard about her as a person is that she’s really cool.

Ian Penman's opinions on Patti largely mirror my own: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n09/ian-penman/ways-to-be-pretentious

table, how do you reconcile your admiration for Pound's Cantos and his anti-semitism (which pops up often in'em)? I'm not trying to zing. I want to understand how you weigh an artist's grotesqueries. Or is that you find Pound a more fascinating poet, thus requiring you to think about his offenses?

can’t express how much more i hate ian penman than patti smith

For the first half​ of the book, she had me: I happily surrendered. It was only when I got to the chapter featuring two people whose work I happen to know and love, Paul Bowles and Jean Genet, that the spell was broken. All of a sudden, this oddfellow’s odyssey didn’t feel quite so whimsical – it felt borderline exploitative, as though she was using these people, or their memory, to make herself look good

how offensive

penman literally the worst yet inexplicably most acclaimed music writer i’ve ever read

taking outlandish positions that are just like more extreme versions of received wisdom (the drop off between horses and radio ethiopia… imo it is not dramatic), sounding at all points like a total fucking gasbag who is in love with their correctness

i don’t even like patti’s memoirs! she’s a better performer than she is a writer. but that’s what i like about her, that’s the appeal, she makes the work work

The free outdoor concert I saw her give at Lincoln Center in 2016 was absolutely amazing. Fiery, political, fun. I was stunned.

Even her best albums are spotty.

(If you type ‘patti smith lyrics’ into Google, five of the eight most popular songs are on Horses, and one is ‘Because the Night’.)

Not sure what that's supposed to prove tbh. Why lyrics? Why eight? What if one album is more popular? Fwiw, of her top 10 songs on Spotify, only three are from Horses and "Because the Night" (from Easter) has almost six times the number of plays as the #2 song ("Dancing Barefoot" from Wave, not Horses).

Actually #3 is her "Smells Like Teen Spirit" cover. The top Horses song is "Gloria" at #4 and the #5 song is "People Have the Power" from Dream of Life.

I’ve known many people who dearly love Horses, but I can’t recall a single person ever declaring a passion for any of the other work, intermittent poetry and photography included.

like, also, dude has never met another rock critic in his life? and expressing in it a way that makes me want to give him a wedgie he can't recover from

With Horses criticism I always think of this old Reynolds bit

Better as an idea than a musical reality, I retort. "Land" is enduringly awesome, but most of the rest of it is, as Joe Carducci said, a rock critic's and a poet's vision of "rock'n'roll", and as such its rapid decline into Springsteen shlockodrama was predictable from the off. And the debut features one of the weakest stabs at white reggae ever—it makes The Members look like Jah Shaka.

Whereas it's one of the only NY punk albums I *do* genuinely like.

table, how do you reconcile your admiration for Pound's _Cantos_ and his anti-semitism (which pops up often in'em)? I'm not trying to zing. I want to understand how you weigh an artist's grotesqueries. Or is that you find Pound a more fascinating poet, thus requiring you to think about his offenses?

She embodies the best and worst elements of the Beats, the Doors, punk, etc. etc. so I can definitely understand why someone wouldn't like her but I kind of buy into her cult of personality when I would dismiss other artists trying to do something similar. My wife was quite moved by Patti's memoirs so her enthusiasm is something that I enjoy connecting with.

I haven't read Patti Smith's memoir. I did read Debbie Harry's, which I found eminently readable, funny and even moving in some parts. I vaguely remember a reference or two to Patti Smith in the book, but apparently they weren't memorable (unlike her encounter with, say, Iggy Pop and David Bowie). At any rate, I can respect Patti for carving her own path in a male-dominated field, but Debbie did the same thing with a hell of a lot more style.

I was actually at the Lincoln Center and Summerstage shows mentioned above - they really were amazing. The Lincoln Center show was right after the atrocious Trump rally/GOP convention calling for Clinton to be executed. Patti was furious about that, and when she capped off the show (I think "Gloria") she grabbed her guitar and screamed "EXECUTE THIS MOTHERFUCKER!" and unleashed a vicious wave of feedback. Again, this was outdoors on the UWS, so I'm sure plenty of residents heard it that evening.

I've only grown to love her music over the years. I have the same reservations about her memoir - I can see how it appeals to people who romanticize the LES but that's not me - and her albums generally aren't perfect, but at least five of them are overall good, and Horses is still a favorite. I think I posted this elsewhere, but she's kind of like the grandmother I wish everyone had. My parents would certainly hate her, but she'd be a good antidote to what's wrong with them.

*I have the same reservations others have about her memoir

I have the video of the very end of that Lincoln Center show on my phone. She ended it by saying, over thunderous music any 70 yo should be proud of, "People! Be strong! Be vigilant! Don't take any bullshit! Be good! Love one another! Motherfuckers!"

Please Kill Me came out in 1996 and upended all of that, bc Patti Smith came out of it looking kind of sketchy if not fraudulent and Blondie came out looking great.

Is this true? Because pretty much everyone (except maybe David Johansen) comes off terribly in that book, which is one of its "charms".

I haven't listened to enough Patti Smith to have an opinion either way on her entire output, but I think Ask The Angels (off Radio Ethiopia) is one of the *great* rock songs, just pure arrogant defiance in the midst of apocalyptic meltdown. "Rock and roll is what I'm born to be": an absolutely thrilling line in the context of the song.

I'm just glad this hasn't (yet) descended into the misogyny of the Patty Smyth vs. Patti Smith thread.

really loving this revive. several things coming up that put words to my feelings re:patti. i've never seen her live, but the sentiment that she's better in person than on record somehow makes perfect sense to me.

also this is a perfect insulting phrase for alltimes-

Springsteen shlockodrama

fun to say out, too.