100 Favorite Albums: Patti Smith – Horses

Tomorrow evening my wife and I will attend the fabulous Night Owl Record Show in SE Portland. Hundreds of vinyl enthusiasts will be pawing through crates and boxes looking for gems to add to their collection. We’ll be looking for (among other things) the decent copy of Patti Smith’s Horses that has eluded my wife and I for several years now. Sure, we could just pick one up on ebay for a fairly reasonable sum – but theres just something about the thrill of the hunt. The thought of pulling it out of a box, taking it home and dropping the needle and hearing it as it was meant to be heard.

Horses is - among other things – one of the best albums of the 70’s, as important as any album in terms of defining the punk movement, one of the greatest debut albums of all time and the definitive Patti Smith record. It also has the rare distinction of being one of those records that anyone with even a cursory interest in the history of American music should listen to.

Patti Smith was in my mind the first artist to successfully blend spoken poetry and rock music. Previous attempts were either vacuous or overwrought and pretentious (or in the case of The Doors: all three). In songs like “Free Money” and “Gloria” Smith’s rapid fire delivery has a primal quality that demands your attention. Its easy to forget how great of a singer she is. Her instrument is certainly unique and might be oft putting to people looking for something more conventional from female singers. Its her phrasing, tone and performance that make her great. Just like Bob Dylan.

This may not be the first post-modern rock record, but it is certainly one of the best - only inferior to Highway 61 and Born to Run in terms of rock pastiche. The reworking of “Gloria” that opens the album turns a bar band classic by Van Morrison's Them into a hymn of sexual and spiritual liberation. The “Land” suite on side two is a tremendous accomplishment that manages to stand up on repeat listens despite its length. This is simply as good as it gets when it comes to rock music. I eagerly await the day when I can listen to it as a complete work as it spins on my turntable.