Horses

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Patti Smith’s debut, 'Horses', merges the minimalist three-chord structures of nascent punk rock with the free-form, improvisational spirit of Beat poetry and avant-garde jazz. John Cale's production balances the band’s raw, garage-rock energy against more structured arrangements, while Smith's distinctive vocals shift between spoken-word narration and anarchic singing. The album's lyrics blend autobiographical accounts of her family with fantastical imagery and tributes to rock's past, establishing a new literary precedent for the punk movement and rock music at large.