Patti Smith

Last month I was talking with people about how I believe that Patti Smith is seriously overrated. But if you want to formulate a statement, you’ll also need arguments on which to base it. To be sure, I realize that she helped female singers explore modes of expression beyond merely singing pretty love songs. In that respect, you can draw a direct line to Blondie and to Siouxsie and the Banshees. Unfortunately, that also means that she often sounds horrible, no Janis Joplin or Billie Holiday (singers who likewise can be said to have been limited in their vocal range, but still were unrivaled in their expression). The spoken word delivery of her own poetry is even more annoying (witness “Birdland,” and “Land” on Horses, “Poppies” on Radio Ethiopia, “Babelogue” on Easter, and the title-track on Wave, for instance).

Musically, her albums provide a link between the psychedelic art rock of The Velvet Underground and the American punk rock of Television, The Ramones, Blondie, and The Runaways, via some garage blues rock. If her debut errs on the artistic side, it lacks the punch on the punk side. I prefer the burst of energy on her rendition of The Who’s “My Generation.” In retrospect I find it hard to believe that critics blamed her for self-indulgence on her sophomore effort, as if Horses (1975) wasn’t overly self-indulgent. You might say she sold out, in that onwards from Radio Ethiopia (1976) her sound became more and more polished and mainstream, until Patti Smith sounds just like Stevie Nicks (not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, just that Stevie Nicks does that better). So, to me it seems that her overall relevance is limited to the late-70s NYC punk rock scene at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB... Admittedly, I wish I could have been there!

The members of her band in the 70s (Lenny Kaye, Richard Sohl, Ivan Kral, Jay Dee Daugherty) are no doubt talented, I’ll give her that, but much of the music remains rather uninspiring and unoriginal. Noted exceptions include “Radio Ethiopia” (ten minutes worth of distorted rock guitar noise), “Chicklets” (a nice outtake with fender rhodes), “Easter” (a religious meditation on death and resurrection), and “Dancing Barefoot” (a celebration of falling in love). Perhaps it’s unfair to dismiss her poetry without so much as a word, but I just can’t force myself to analyze her lyrics. I just think she’s trite. (“Hey Sheba, hey Salome, hey Venus eclipsin’ my way, ah! / Her vessel, every woman is a vessel, is evasive, is aquatic. / Everyone, silver ecstatic, platinum disk spinning”; or “She is recreation. / She, intoxicated by thee. / She has the slow sensation that / He is levitating with she” ... ?)

Sorry if I offend any die-hard followers, but my contention remains that Patti Smith is a clear case of being at the right place at the right time – and with the right people: photographers Robert Mapplethorpe and Lynn Goldsmith; producers John Cale, Jack Douglas, Jimmy Iovine, and Todd Rundgren; plus musicians such as Tom Verlaine (Television), Allen Lanier (Blue Öyster Cult), (her own guitarist) Lenny Kaye, and Bruce Springsteen; and the coterie of Rolling Stone writers who praised her to the stars (she was herself at one point an RS writer). That doesn’t mean I find her outright bad, I just could have lived without her music – even if I’ll keep her first four albums in my iTunes...

Alt Rock

At the recommendation of my dearest Luloo I’ve recently tuned into some non-heavy metal music... First off, The xx’s eponymous debut album (2009) that has apparently been received with universal critical acclaim. At first it didn’t blow my mind, but after repeat listening it grew and grew on me. Theirs is very nice, dreamy, alternative pop rock, with hints of new age electronica. Or, to state it differently, it reminds me of Radiohead, Björk, Keren Ann (especially her collaboration with Bang Gang’s Bardi Johannsson), some parts resemble The Cure (circa Seventeen Seconds), with a splash of Bat for Lashes or Feist. To these ears their song “Infinity” is a remake of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” (which you might know from David Lynch’s film Wild at Heart, or from that sexy black and white video in which Isaak is rolling on the beach with fashion top model Helena Christensen). I really had to warm up to this kind of music and, to be true, I have to be in the mood for it, which I’m not always, but it sure does pay off very well.

Next, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s collaboration with Beck, entitled IRM (MRI, of the brain scan, spelled backwards). The album similarly reminds me of Keren Ann plus a dash of The Velvet Underground with Nico, and some Portishead, maybe Radiohead, too... It’s sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic, soft, alternative pop rock. Unfortunately I can’t let go of the fact that Charlotte’s father Serge Gainsbourg is a legend in France, that she would most likely never have been able to release this album without her father’s legacy, because in all honesty, Charlotte cannot really sing ... she sighs and moans (much like her mother Jane Birkin), which is nice, too, but not extraordinarily skillful. After giving it some time to sink in, though, it sure grew on me, too. When I was moving these past few weeks, these albums became my soundtrack and gave me a sense of regained cheer and hope and optimism...

Another critics’ fave is the debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago, by Bon Iver (“bon hiver” is French for “good winter”), practically the one-man band of Justin Vernon. This kind of acoustic alternative indie folk rock is definitely not your Music Cricket’s usual cup o’ tea... Yet, I was soon captivated by the tuneful tracks, with remarkable soundscapes in the background here and a beautiful trumpet line there, carefully arranged, especially considering that it was essentially self-produced and recorded in a Wisconsin cabin. There are silent moments where you can practically hear the cracks of the woodwork. “Lump Sum” could almost have been by Radiohead. After making the concerted effort of listen to this music, I was pleasantly rewarded. After just a few days I started humming random bits of melody from “re: Stacks,” “Wolves,” “For Emma” and “Skinny Love.” I can imagine that listening to a song like “Wolves” on a good stereo (to which I don’t have access right now) would be an amazingly powerful, wistfully emotional experience. Thanks Luloo, my love!

[This is a slightly edited version of the original post; BvO - 5/26/10]