Issue date: 2/9/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: www.antimonide.com Cover of Patti Smith's "Horses."

In 1967, Patti Smith, a young woman from a small suburb in New Jersey, decided she was through with trying to please her family and moved to New York City to begin living her life on her own terms. Almost immediately, she met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and poet Janet Hamill, and was launched into the world of writers, musicians, artists and vagabonds that had become the dominant counter-culture in NYC at the time. Living at the now famous Hotel Chelsea, a popular stomping ground of everyone from Bob Dylan to Jack Kerouac, Smith began writing, painting and, eventually, performing.

By the early 1970s, punk had become a full-fledged obsession, with new bands coming from nearly every corner of the U.S. and Great Britain. Around this time, Smith and a small group of other musicians started to come together under one name, the Patti Smith Group, and released their first single in 1974, funded with the help of Mapplethrope. Shortly after, the Patti Smith Group signed onto Arista Records and finally released their first LP, "Horses," in 1975. Since then, the Patti Smith Group and Smith herself have recorded other releases and the face of punk has changed a great deal, but Horses still remains a classic, must-have album for any fan of the genre.

From the very beginning of "Horses," you can tell you are in for an experience. Just the opening line to the Patti Smith Group's explosive cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria," "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine…," sets the tone of resistance and rebellion that Smith became so well-known for. More than anything, though, "Gloria" is not just a cover; it is a complete reimagining of the song, just as most of Smith's songs are a reimagining of punk music, blurring the lines between the sung word and the spoken word and hurried punk guitar and classic blues riffs.

The best tracks on "Horses" showcase just that - the Patti Smith Group's ability to tear down the walls between genre and style, singing and speaking, punk and poetry, feminism and art. After "Gloria," Smith bombards listeners with an almost non-stop flow of songs that break boundaries and create new ones.

In the songs "Redondo Beach," "Free Money" and "My Generation," the Smith connects everything from the avant-garde intuitions of her favorite poet, Arthur Rimbaud, to the hard-living, alcohol-swilling, drug-using lifestyle she and everyone she knew had created for themselves. These tracks feature more than just a vast knowledge of music history; they feature the knowledge of rundown, beat-up artists trying to make a dime to afford to feed themselves for the night.

Then, in "Land: Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Mur (De)," the 17 minute long experiment that is to punk music what "The Odyssey" is to literature, Smith takes listeners on a journey throughout her imagination, heart and emotions. Looking at how long the song is can be intimidating, but the changes throughout (noted by the backslashes in the title of the song) make it seem like three separate songs, and by the end, it is apparent that enduring those 17 minutes was well worth it.

By the end of the album, you feel enlightened and excited. You feel as if you have been introduced to something truly groundbreaking and extraordinary. "Horses" is one of those albums you will never forget.

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