No one likes Patti Smith’s new album.<\/p>\n
I’ve read reviews, I’ve asked people who have purchased her
\nalbums (the two people that I know) and sadly, by looking at the
\ncharts. People who have bought
\nGung Ho<\/i>, her latest album, have either raved about it or
\nhave little praise for it. Ah, the hell of living in the shadow of
\na classic album.<\/p>\n
When Patti Smith recorded
\nHorses<\/i> nearly 25 years ago, there were far more barriers to
\nbreak down and it was a helluva lot easier to shock people. True,
\nhearing her bellow, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”
\nstill gives chills up my spine, but face it, you can’t expect her
\nto re-create that environment. Nor should we expect such a gifted
\nartist to be complacent with repeating a formula.<\/p>\n
That’s not what Smith is about. And
\nGung Ho<\/i> shouldn’t be compared to
\nHorses<\/i> or even
\nEaster<\/i>. Taken as an individual work,
\nGung Ho<\/i> is a gorgeous album that is a welcome addition to a
\nyear that has been dominated by boy bands and lame metal\/hip hop
\nhybrids.<\/p>\n
Smith retains most of her band from
\nHorses<\/i>, mainly Lenny Kaye on lead guitar and Jay Dee
\nDaugherty on drums. But it’s not a “let’s get the band back
\ntogether” type of album.
\nGung Ho<\/i> is a new version of Patti Smith, different even from
\nher persona on
\nGone Again<\/i>, her 1996 comeback album.<\/p>\n
The new Smith and her bandmates bring in include dabbles in
\ndance rhythms in songs like “Persuasion” and “Glitter In Their
\nEyes” and a new focus on straight-ahead song structure, such as the
\nbeautiful, “Lo And Beholden” and “New Party.” Catchy is one word
\nthat I would never associated with Smith, but there are at least
\nsix tracks on
\nGung Ho<\/i> that will no doubt linger in your head once the
\nalbum has ended.<\/p>\n
Nostalgia creeps into
\nGung Ho<\/i>. Many of the songs have scattered references to the
\nVietnam War. And “New Party” calls for a political party that
\nbetter represents the people. Smith cracks, “Why don’t you
\nfertilize my lawn, with what’s running from your mouth” on this
\nsong. As good as her intentions are, the song is a rant about
\n“those clowns in congress.” Sorry, but politicians are fairly easy
\ntargets. Her powerful poet-delivery voice resonates in “Strange
\nMessengers,” but her tying the horrific imagery of slave ships and
\nher damnation of those who have wasted their heritage on smoking
\ncrack is a bit far reaching, even for her.<\/p>\n
Still, I’ll take over-ambition over complacency any day. And
\nSmith’s looseness has given her a renewed confidence you can hear
\nthroughout the album. The tribal beats that close “Gung Ho” close
\nwith Smith breathing out, “Give Me One More Turn.” She is
\nreflecting on revolution, via personal or an organized formation.
\nAnd her unfortunate departure from Arista makes one wonder if
\nGung Ho<\/i> may be her last full testament put to record. If it
\nis, then Clive Davis, former head of Arista Records, has reason to
\nbe proud.<\/p>\n
No, it’s not a revolutionary album. Just a flat-out good
\nrecording that is one of the best of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5805],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36705","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-patti-smith","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36705"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36705"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}