I purchased Horses when I was about 16 I have been enthralled. That record is so damn funky it hurts.
I saw her last year in a big tent at the back of where they do the Hard Rock Calling gigs and she was superb. I even managed to take a blurry photo of Morrissey who swiftly slipped backstage. Two of my heroes in one day. Shame I had the start of a bout of chronic food poisoning about half way through her set but I muddled through and was off work for nearly a week.

I said that this morning. I was in a particular state of pissed off, where no music was touching it. Until Patti came on The Pod and made it better. But making today The Patti Smith Day works for me!

Land, Gloria, the whole of Easter will do for me.

Love Patti, ever since I heard Horses as an 18 year old and it became one of my all-time faves. She's always positive, never cynical and when I finally got to see her in Cambridge in 2007 it was maybe the best gig I've ever been to.

I really like this album. Great title track and includes some lovely ballads.

And to include Jeff Buckley, John Cale and Tom Verlaine in the band does not hurt the record at all!

..and Pumping and Pissing In A River and and and....

is my favourite "25th Floor", "Privilege", "Til Victory", "Because The Night", "Rock'n'Roll Nigger", "Space Monkey" - how many great songs can you cram on one album. MUCH better than "Horses"...

Some of her later albums are pretty good too, "Gone Again" particularly.

The best opening line.

On the best opening track.

Of the best debut album.

Ever.

"Jesus died for someone's sins - but not mine."

The opening line of Gloria, the opening song on Horses, Patti Smith's debut album, released in 1975. Arguably the greatest debut album ever. It sounded like nothing released before, and very little since. It took complex, erudite poetry infused with startling imagery, and combined it with a range of musical styles including rock, rock and roll and reggae. It predated and informed punk, and confirmed that women could compete with men in the rock arena without compromise.

Horses is a difficult album, but sounds to these ears as fresh as it did on first hearing, thirty years ago. Each time I listen (and you do have to listen - this is not background music) new things surface and entrance. The subject matter is stark, but not depressing - there is a confidence and defiance that suggests redemption and self-belief despite the violence and death.

Gloria's opening line is a statement of intent, a manifesto even, which leads into the tale of a lesbian love affair infused with the spirit of Van Morrison's original, which is transcended and pummelled into submission by the band, before slowing into a defiant restatement of the opening line.

Land (Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Mer(de)) is the highpoint of an album full of highpoints, and the possibly the best combination of poetry, imagery and rock ever. As with Gloria, it takes a 60's classic, and subverts it into something huge and compelling. Again, the subject matter is dark - centering on a homosexual rape and subsequent suicide but it makes that response feel almost positive - something other than 'surrender' - before referencing Gloria as the cycle comes to it's conclusion. Powerful, compelling stuff. Patti playing in the sea of possibility.

But to focus on these two (admittedly standout) tracks is to undersell the rest of the album - the stream of consciousness that suffuses Birdland, the lilting reggae of Redondo Beach and the closing lament that is Elegie.

Horses will not be for everyone - it took me a few years to really 'get' the album - but persevere and you will find the beauty that lurks within.

of vis fing wot we call "rock", Patti Smith, Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell would be deemed as important as John Lennon, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan.

It is what it is. And there it lies.

How about a biopic? Charlotte Gainsbourg was clearly sent down to this earth to portray the young, jolie-laide Patti, n'est-ce pas?

Always loved 'Frederick' but bypassed her albums in the past, judging her songs as tuneless and/or difficult. Then I read 'Just Kids' her autobiography of her coming of age as an artist in NYC, was captivated by her storytelling and listened to the music properly for the first time and everything started to make sense.
Have seen her live this year and it was absolutely magical - she was warm, witty and soulful and must have one of the most underrated voices in rock - certainly one of the best gigs I've seen. She is an artist in the truest sense of the word and should be treasured!

here. Just two of many:
"Dancing Barefoot" is a work of sinuous beauty.
"Horses" - my god... I remember seeing a clip of her doing it on OGWT for the first time. One young mind comprehensively blown.

She also seems to be one of the nicest, least starry performers you could ever meet - as I get older, I find that more and more admirable.

I know its all covers, but its probably the most cohesive album she's put out. There's great stuff on all of the, but her version of "Pastime Paradise" is fantastic!