Track Listing

1. Gloria
2. Redondo Beach
3. Birdland
4. Free Money
5. Kimberly
6. Break It Up
7. Land: Horses/Land Of A Thousand Dances/La Mer (De)
8. Elegie
9. My Generation (Bonus Track)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6467 in Music
• Published on: 1996
• Released on: 1996-06-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered

Album Description
Vinyl Classics reissue of the 1975 album comes as a vinyl look-a-like CD that's packaged in a die-cut see-through Slipcase. Arista. 2005.

Amazon.com
On her 1975 debut, Smith was full of piss and vinegar, seriously interested in bringing together high art and low three-chord rock & roll. As a result, her free-form poetry meshes with covers of "Gloria" and "Land of a Thousand Dances," and the album centers on two long, highfalutin' pieces, including the three-part suite (warning! warning! art!) "Land." (The CD version appends a messy live take on The Who's "My Generation.") Led by Richard Sohl's piano, the arrangements don't exactly rock, and some of Smith's songwriting gets buried in its stylistic affectations (there's a great song under "Redondo Beach"'s fake reggae). But the point of Horses was Smith's persona of volume, cunning and exile, and it comes through distinctly. --Douglas Wolk

Customer Reviews

A real disappointment
I listened to "Horse" a couple of times after having heard music by Ms. Smith that I found dynamic and emotionally moving. I had also heard rave critiques and was very interested in hearing what many consider to be her best work. The words that come to mind are self absorbed and pretentious, and in large part musically lame. Enjoy it if you enjoy it: perhaps you had to be there at the time of its inception to truly appreciate it. As far as I am concerned this piece falls far short of its mark, and the praise that has been heaped upon it.

Patti's Poetic Punk Horses
"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine"--Patti Smith.

With her 1975 debut album, Horses, Patti Smith managed to single-handedly fuse beat poetry with punk rock. At the time, Smith was a member of the NYC St. Mark's Poetry Project and the founding member of Patti Smith Group, featuring Lenny Kaye on guitars, Ivan Kral on bass, Jay Dee Daugherty on drums, and Richard Sohl on piano. Produced by John Cale (with some inspiration from the spirit Jimi Hendrix), the album opens with an intense cover of Van Morrison's 1964 Them song, "Gloria," then transitions into "Redondo Beach" (a song Morrissey frequently performs live; Live at Earls Court). Smith based the lyrics of "Birdland" on a memoir of Wilhelm Reich, Book of Dreams (1973). Both Morrissey and Johnny Marr of The Smiths have said that Horses left them in awe. They are not alone. (Although Morrissey has always said he chose the name The Smiths because it was "the most ordinary name" he could think of, I have always wondered if he chose the name out of love for Patti Smith.) For me, Horses was a college favorite. A near-perfect album song sequence includes:

1. Gloria (Digitally Remastered 1996) 5:56
2. Redondo Beach (Digitally Remastered 1996) 3:27
3. Birdland (Digitally Remastered 1996) 9:15
4. Free Money (Digitally Remastered 1996) 3:52
5. Kimberly (Digitally Remastered 1996) 4:26
6. Break It Up (Digitally Remastered 1996) 4:02
7. Land (Digitally Remastered 1996) 9:28
8. Elegie (Digitally Remastered 1996) 2:42
9. My Generation (Bonus Track/Digitally Remastered 1996) 3:31

G. Merritt

I'll keep it short and sweet...
The word that comes most readily to mind is "catharsis." That's what this album, Patti Smith's masterful 1975 debut, is all about. Catharsis. A wave of tension being ripped from your spine, from your blood, from the cords of your bones and the fibers of your nerves and the red streaks in your eyes, love and sex and fear and hate and joy suddenly uncaged. Release. It's a forty-five minute scream. Articulate, poetic, emotive, and gorgeous, but a scream nonetheless. And there's a 60s garage rock cover! Two of `em, actually. This is rock `n' roll at its gutsiest and its brainiest, and no music fan should ever be without it.