Word: pattiness
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THESE TWO albums are about as dissimilar, musically, as any products of today's mass-marketed record companies can be. Lou Reed's record is curious fusion of jazz instruments, electronic effects, and Reed's fast-decaying voice; Patti Smith's latest is a luke-warm porridge of mushy mixing and tame playing. Yet we have New York Times critic John Rockwell '62 hailing both artists as "principal figures in New York's vanguard rock underground," and liberally praising their records. Arista Records chose to release both new albums at the same time, helping link the two in the public...
...respect, at least, both Lou Reed and Patti Smith represent a single tradition in popular music-that of the talking singer. Both like to patter over a light drum beat or bass line, in the manner of a Jim Morrison. For Smith this practice masquerades as high poetic art; for Reed it seems to be more a product of his declining vocal resources. His last album, Take No Prisoners-a live, double-record set-consisted mostly of Reed chattering with and occasionally insulting his audiences...
...Patti Smith is one punk who has transcended the need for self-glorification and has instead found her ability to express her angst, however sophomoric it may appear at times...
...first appeared with that worn leather, her straggly, filthy looks could not be avoided. This the woman who thinks that orgasm is the highest state of consciousness, who roots her angst in Burroughs, Rimbaud, Hendrix, Morrison, the Bible--symbolists all. Patti Smith has used the symbols of our time exceedingly well, just as Dylan and Springsteen did before her, towards somewhat different ends. Avoiding the swastika, she has flaunted her hair, her leather, her boots, her sickliness, her chains, her sex...powerful symbols which horrified Rotarians and changed rock'n'roll...
...inward. This is where confused fools lose themselves in their symbols and overdose, and it is where artists use their symbols, change them, flex them, adapt them, to express their angst. It's facing reality: Iggy Pop is a fool, Sid Vicious is dead, Johnny Rotten is dying, and Patti Smith is fucking with the future.*CrimsonLaura J. Levine...