"Horses", Patti Smith, 1975
Dia: 19
Mês: Abril
Ano: 2013
Ano: 2013
Ouvir: http://youtu.be/hmXcIjjdgX4
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Produzido por John Cale.
The Trouser Press Record Guide – Fourth Edition (Collier Books, 1991): Horses, produced by John Cale, broke a lot of stylistic ground, thanks to Smith's wild singing and disconcerting lyrics, but it also showcased inspired amateurism in the playing and an emotional intensity that recalled the Velvet Underground at its most powerful. Too idiosyncratic to be generally influential, Horses is a brilliant explosion of talent by a challenging, unique artist pioneering a sound not yet fashionable or, by general standards, even acceptable.
The A to X of Alternative Music (Continuum, 2004): Right from the off, the Horses album demonstrated her inmate understanding of the rhythmic power of words. "Land", the epic centrepiece of the album, tells the story of male rape in an American college set to the groove of Wilson Pickett's "Land Of A 1000 Dances". The beginning of the song is spoken evocatively, as you would expect from a poet, and the music builds as the horrific story is told until the boy floats off into a dream of fiery horses. As Smith sings "And then he saw horses, horses, horses, horses..." Lenny Kaye brings the band in and Smith hits the vocal as the band crunches into the Picket number, without missing a beat. Her version of Them's "Gloria" follows a similar pattern, "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine" goes the lyric before the rock'n'roll rhythm strikes in to offer salvation. The whole album is about the power of rock'n'roll redemption, using the key motifs of sex and death. "Redondo Beach" deals with a lesbian suicide, "Birdland" is about a boy's dreamtime visit to his dead father, and "Elegie" is a paean to Jimi Hendrix.
The Rolling Stone Album Guide – Third Edition (Random House, 1992): With the very first utterance of her debut album, Patti Smith declares war on the musical complacency of the mid-'70s: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine". Horses defies the reigning rock conventions of its time, and deflates a few current notions, too. Smith's idiosyncratic mix of Beat poetry and the big beat still has the power to either entice or offend. Teeming with ambition, primitivism, anybody-can-do-this chutzpah and casual androgyny, Horses demands a reaction. On the basis of attitude alone, Smith inspired every punk and new-wave artist who followed her wake. After a while, she even learned how to sing! Admitedly, singing wasn't Smith's first priority. A published poet and rock critic, she began reciting her Beat-tribute "Babelogues" over fellow writer Lenny Kaye's guitar accompaniment in the early '70s. On Horses, her visionary metaphors and verbal riffs collide with the inviting din of late-'60s-style garage-band rock. ★★★★★
The Virgin Encyclopedia of Indie & New Wave (Virgin Books and Muze, 1998): This highly lauded set, produced by John Cale, skilfully invoked Smith's 60s mentors but in a celebratory manner. By simultaneously capturing the fire of punk, Smith completed a collection welcomed by both old and new audiences. ★★★★
AllMusic: It isn't hard to make the case for Patti Smith as a punk rock progenitor based on her debut album, which anticipated the new wave by a year or so: the simple, crudely played rock & roll, featuring Lenny Kaye's rudimentary guitar work, the anarchic spirit of Smith's vocals, and the emotional and imaginative nature of her lyrics – all prefigure the coming movement as it evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. ★★★★★
Pitchfork: Horses is an album of its time – not because it's dated, but because it precariously captures a phase in Smith's life, and when all the raw elements fall in place, it feels miraculous. [9.4]
Rolling Stone: To say that any of these songs is "about" anything in particular is silly — it limits them in a way that hopelessly confines their evocativeness. Like all real poets, Smith offers visions that embrace a multiplicity of meanings, all of them valid if they touch an emotional chord. (...) The underlying instrumental music is the kind of artful rock & roll primitivism that has long characterized the New York underground. She has four men in her band but the leader is clearly Lenny Kaye, who has been with her since her first musically accompanied poetry reading five years ago. Kaye is a rock critic and oldies expert. The songs on Horses are co-written by Smith and either Kaye, Richard Sohl and Ivan Kral of the band, Tom Verlaine of Television (a striking, as yet unrecorded New York avant-garde quartet) or Allen Lanier of Blue Oyster Cult.
PopMatters: As haphazardly great as the band were – Kaye on lead guitar, Ivan Kral on rhythm guitar and bass, Richard Sohl on piano, and Jay Dee Daugherty on drums – there was always Patti: cajoling and imploring, coaxing and keening, snarling and panting, ring mistress of a mongrel prodigy circus troupe. Throughout, her voice could be warm, strident, horny, sneering, harsh, celebratory, hoarse, desperate, cool, wretched and angelic. I never understood all the Rimbaud references back then, or the pseudo Beat poetry, or the proto-sampling of "Land of a 1000 Dances". I might have just vaguely discerned the Hendrix love on "Elegie", but I had no idea who Television were, or who producer John Cale was. Or even Van Morrison. Yet, in my fashion, I got it. And never let it go. There came a day when I left England for good. I doubt that would have happened without the sea of possibilities Horses opened up.
BBC – Patti Smith on 'Horses': "I was not really a punk": Her famed portrait on the cover of Horses, taken by her co-conspirator and lover Robert Mapplethorpe, was enough to stop traffic in a record store. Smith couldn’t be defined by gender, a style, a city or a subculture. In stark black-and-white, she peered from behind shaggy hair with a mixture of confidence and purpose, cool and potentially lethal, a jacket slung Sinatra-like over her left shoulder. Yet her slender frame and delicate hands radiated vulnerability. (...) "Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine", she announced. The greatest opening line on a debut album in rock history? It was less about sacrilege than a declaration of independence, a firm belief in self-determination.
Observer: The historical importance of Horses is inarguable.
BBC – Behind rock's finest album cover: A timeless friendship: It is considered one of the greatest album covers of all time. A simple portrait to the waist of a woman in a crisp white shirt, a black ribbon draped over her shoulders, dark jeans. Her jaw is jutting out proudly, defiantly. A jacket is slung over her shoulder. The wall she is leaning against is as brilliant a white as her shirt, a blank and blinding canvas. It is the cover of Patti Smith’s debut album Horses, taken in a Greenwich Village apartment sometime in 1975 by Smith’s longtime friend, Robert Mapplethorpe.
The Guardian – Interview: Patti Smith: Because as a teenager I was the worst wallflower weirdo. So I knew what it felt like to be an outsider, and like Walt Whitman saying "young poet standing there, I am reaching out to you through time", I wanted Horses to say "if you feel like you don't belong anywhere, hopefully this will inspire you or give you some respite."
Público – Entrevista: Patti Smith: "Tentei que Horses tivesse essa mesma urgência, misto de cinema, poesia e música. De alguma forma todos os meus álbuns contêm algo de semelhante, mas aquela pureza é irrepetível. Algumas daquelas canções resultaram das minhas deambulações com [William] Burroughs ou [Allen] Ginsberg e da minha relação com a poesia. Havia esse fascínio. Estava centrada nisso, não posso dizer que tinha uma grande visão do mundo em sentido lato, mas olhava para o meu lado e via gente como eu, que se sentia à margem e procurava enquadrar-se, e de alguma forma esse disco contribuiu para criar um sentido de comunidade, como se de repente percebêssemos que não estávamos sozinhos. Entretanto, eu mudei. O mundo mudou. Mas não creio que, hoje, seja muito diferente. Continuo a achar que a música tem essa capacidade de aglutinar pessoas à sua volta, fazê-las ver que não estão sós, que existem outros a sentir o mesmo, e isso é uma força incrível."
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