Horses (studio album) by Patti Smith

One of the best albums ever made. This album is a forced to be reckoned with. Few could ever rival Patti’s sincerity here. She is depressingly underrated on this site. One of the best artists to live and a poet for the ages.

A very strong release from Patti Smith that has a distinctive style that sounds like punk but made into a more grand version of it. Some people may argue this takes away from the punk style but I think they do it effectively enough on here to create a blend of a few genres which work together very well with each other. At the centre is the fantastic vocal work from Patti Smith who displays her full vocal range across this album and is the main selling point behind the music. Songs like Gloria, Land, Free Money and Birdland are completely transformed due to her performance. The instrumentation is great in places and matches her energy to a degree but there are a few songs where she is let down by it. Kimberly and Break It Up are examples of this for me with both failing to captivate me after several relistens of this record. Overall, a brilliant display of Patti Smith at her vocal best with her creating her own style of punk that is thoroughly enjoyable to experience.

Smith's powerful and distinctive voice is raw, emotive, and unconventional. She sings with a sense of urgency and passion that captures the rebellious spirit of punk rock, and her lyrics are often poetic, political, and personal.

There are some highlights on this album that I like: Gloria, Kimberly and Land at some parts and I can say that I generally like her voice. But overall I just can't enjoy that album as a whole, because of the spoken word, but I enjoy it when it goes punk or ballad.

From Jboy56 12/15/2021 17:54

Never heard this before today, and I think that I can like it despite being quite a difficult album to get into.
The music genre it represents is not punk, jazz. singer-songwriter or rock is a sort of fusion&transformation of those genres. So perhaps it is not for your every day or pleasure listen, but for your occasional visit, perhaps.
An important album of the seventies

This comment is beneath your viewing threshold.

Avant PJ Harvey, il y avait Patti Smith. Un album presque grunge mais avec 15 ans d'avance et au féminin.

From teague 02/07/2021 00:09

Absolutely dripping with eccentricity, took me WAY too long to get to this. I'm not so sure about calling this punk rock though. Certainly it contains a lot of the aspects and attitudes, even the production is perfectly dry, but the relative complexity and grandiosity of the songs differ a bit to what I've come to know as punk. Still, absolute masterpiece. I particularly enjoyed Birdland, Free Money, Kimberly, and Land.

Another one of those (alarmingly many) classic albums I appreciate more than enjoy.

From StefanR10 12/26/2020 17:50

Classic punk album really cool