Word: smithing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...rock monologue can be a worthwhile approach, if the singer has something interesting to say and musical values don't completely dry up. They do, however, at least once on Smith's new album-the title track, "Wave." In a gesture as pretentious as it is self-defeating, she abandons music entirely and presents what Rockwell calls "great acting." That certainly isn't what people pay for when they buy a record from someone who poses as a "rock and roll star"-someone who even sings a cover of the old Bryds track "So You Wanna Be a Rock...
...rest of Wave, Smith has dropped the rock and roll as well, in spirit if not literally. By calling in California drug commando Todd Rundgren to produce music, she must have known what she would get-thick, homogenized sound with all the bite smoothed out. Wave, Smith has dropped the rock and roll as well, in spirit if not literally. By calling in California drug commando Todd Rundgren to produce music, she must have know what she would get-thick, homogenized sound with all the bite smoothed out. Wave is Smith's wimpiest yet. In a steady decline from...
THERE'S STILL some good music on Wave-"Frederick," an ode to Rimbaud set to a tune suspiciously like Smith's only hit, "Because The Night;" "Dancing Barefoot," in which she sings with more precision than she has yet managed; and "Broken Flag," a sweeping anthem to her curious idea of America. But even these tracks partake of the torpor that fills the rest of the record. During her last tour, Smith padded sheepishly around the stage and did her best to play cute. The music on Wave acts identically, and neither escapes with a shred of credibility...
...hard to tell whether he's addressing some femme fatale or just himself, a decade ago. Like Smith, Reed apparently prefers talking to singing; but he has worked out a way to do so and still turn out something that can be called a song. On "All Through the Night," he both sings the words of the song to one of his repetitive tunes, and jabbers away in the background through the noise of a barroom conversations. With the sonic breadth of the binaural technique, the track captures what you would like to think it would be like...
...Reed and Patti Smith both began as hard rockers, and both have turned away from the good, fast beat and loud guitar staples of that genre. Smith has ditched them for mellow production and a cute smile, letting pretense win out over her instinct to play the music hard. Reed, more respectably, has done as much with them as he can and them tried to break away gently. Neither can tightly be called a leader of the avant garde. Reed is tired out, and though his work may point the way for others, his days of leadership are over. Smith...