Where Does Musician and Poet Patti Smith Fit In the G&L Taxonomy, DL?

IMHO, she's a legendary female artist like Joni Mitchell with a substantial, loyal following of G&L fans, but not really a "diva" in any sense. She does win points for her passionate and loving association with gay artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

She is from Mantua NJ

Patti Smith really isn't all that talented, mentioning her in the same breath as Joni Mitchell, or any other talented songwriter, is completely delusional! I remember a confrontation a friend had with Patti back in the day at Max's Kansas City. Patti was totally in the wrong, my friend was dumbfounded by Patti's possibly drug-fueled tirade.

Patti was a diva back then and wasn't even famous yet! She's a poseur, always was and always will be. If it wasn't for a Bruce Springsteen song, the majority of rock fans would have NO clue 'who' she is.

Now when she's on talk shows, Patti plays at being the humble artist. If you knew anything about her during her early days in NYC, you'd see she's like anyone else who craves fame yet has little talent to back it. She's a total fake creation, her image seemed more important than her actual talent. Like so many other 'artists', music and otherwise, Patti was in the right place at the right time.

R3 that’s what I recall from a book titled Please Kill Me, an oral history of the punk movement in NYC . She was easily threatened and secretly obsessed with more famous and more talented people. I think she told Debbie Harry to get out of NY and get out of rock & roll and tried to sabotage Blondie’s early lineup.

Her writing seems wildly over-praised, and mischaracterizes Mapplethorpe as more saintly than he was.

Still, she has written some very good songs and she can sing. She must have hated 10,000 Maniacs’ cover of Because The Night, performed on a program called Unplugged and released on a CD that sold well, I think.

She's full of surprises. Her book 'Just Kids' is excellent.

Getting nervous at the Nobel Prize Award ceremony, and asking to start over. The Swedish royals didn't mind.

R5 now that’s interesting. She really can sing and she knows what to do with her voice. She does this on a beautiful song called Grateful.

I also really enjoyed a song of hers called Glitter in Their Eyes. A damned good track that possibly could have charted if she wanted it to.

But she seems like a mean lady and, in a way, an elitist who pretends to be an outsider but gobbles up recognition pretty eagerly, some of it deserved, but some of it not.

R6 It’s tough to read that audience. She muscles through that song sort of ponderously. It’s pretty fascinating to watch. I’m not sure if that performance is an interesting failure or not. Thank you for uploading it. I’m sure there are lots of older threads on Patti Smith. She’s tough to figure out.

I’m told she is (or was) contemptuous with fans. Maybe less so now, with so much recognition later in life.

I respect Patti Smith as a musician and writer. 'Dancing Barefoot' is a great song and she has many others. Her version of Van Morrison's 'Gloria' was great rock and great poetry. It was a huge honor for her to represent Dylan at the Nobel Awards ceremony and she distinguished herself, Uncle Bob and the Academy with her humane and touchingly humble performance. I wish her happiness and I look forward to more interesting work from her.

A friend knows Lenny Kaye, he was a music journalist before he joined Patti's band. Lenny is a cool dude, Patti not so much. I believe all the bad stuff I've heard about her, because it can be verified, it's not just gossip and sour grapes.

Patti is a fake and poseur, she's totally contrived, she thinks she's as famous as Dylan and the others she thinks she's equal to. Some of the posts here sound like they're coming from a bunch of drooling groupies or 'friends' of Patti.

What a fucking joke, Patti telling the gorgeous Debbie Harry, who can actually SING, to get out of NYC. Patti is mentally ill, physically repulsive and self-obsessed.

It's amazing what passes for talent, amazing the hype the public buys into. I've heard better singing voices in my neighborhood gay bar! She should have stuck to trying to be a poet, yet Patti knew that wouldn't have garnered her the public fame and attention she was always seeking.

What better way to get famous, become a musician or an actress. Madonna went a similar route, she was a dancer, yet few dancers achieve the same level of fame as a musician or an actress.

A couple of years ago I saw her in a Women in Film event in LA. She did a big build up in her talk to what she billed as the secret of success.

"Take care of your teeth" was not the pearl of wisdom I expected to hear. I had no idea if she was goofing on the audience or if she was as serious as she seemed to be.

"Her writing seems wildly over-praised, and mischaracterizes Mapplethorpe as more saintly than he was.

Still, she has written some very good songs and she can sing. "

Oh my God, by no stretch of the imagination was Robert Mapplethorpe ever "saintly." He was a piece of shit. He was a racist but was obsessed with black cock. After he got AIDS, he continued to behave as always, that is, fucking with impunity. He was a revolting human being.

Patti Smith CANNOT sing. She never could. But being a "punk rock" entertainer, it didn't matter. She's no song writer, either. She was very of her place and time; where else but in the seventies and the punk rock era could anyone that looked and sounded like her get taken seriously as a "musician?"

She has an ego as big as the great outdoors and has always adored herself. And I can't think of anyone who beats her when it comes to being pretentious. Her interviews are unbearable. They're invariably like this: "Blah blah Robert (Mapplethorpe), blah blah Dylan, blah blah Rimbaud, blah blah Allen Ginsberg, blah blah William Burroughs"...and so on and so on. Unbearable.

R9 the connection to Van Morrison, through the song Gloria, is interesting. I’m told he, too, is tough to enjoy live and seems dismissive of his audience. R10 I am confused by the visceral reaction Patti Smith arouses in people like you. But I do understand part of it. She is talented but also creepily self-reverential. The performance artist Penny Arcade seems to have been badly betrayed by Patti.

[quote]It's amazing what passes for talent, amazing the hype the public buys into. I've heard better singing voices in my neighborhood gay bar!

Well, that was the whole point of punk, wasn't it? Anybody could do it. I am in no way a Patti fanatic or groupie. I think she had some good songs, but I do find her pretentious. But she has her place in history just like the Ramones, Television, the New York Dolls, etc. Singing ability was not what it was about.

R14 My sense exactly.

R14, honestly, Patti doesn't realy deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as those people. She wasn't anywhere near as good. Off the top of my head, three punk females better than her are Exene Cervenka, Poly Styrene and Siouxsie Sioux.

R12 that’s what I meant about mischaracterizing Mapplethorpe.

R12, apparently she was a huge bitch to other female punk musicians too, even ones who admired her. Here is what the chick from The Slits says about an encounter with her.

"She does win points for her passionate and loving association with gay artist Robert Mapplethorpe."

She doesn't win any "points" for being Mapplethorpe's beard. They clicked because they had one, single, intense goal in life: to be famous. Both of them fame whores extraordinaire.

She convinced bassist Fred Smith to leave Blondie just before they blew up and became very famous. Fred’s bio doesn’t seem to mention Patti Smith, but she speaks of their relationship as sort of central to her identity, removing her from public life and focusing her on her writing. She considers mothers to be more empathetic because they have born children, and that seems so broad and simplistic and oddly conservative. She’s pretty high-minded for a true punk. I’d never approach her if I came across her, or anyone “famous” for that matter. This thread is very interesting. She is a contradictory presence culturally.

R18 I’d be tempted (today at least) to wonder if Smith wanted Ari out of the dressing room because she was a minor, only 14. But then there are also stories of peers being bullied in the same way.

[quite][R12], apparently she was a huge bitch to other female punk musicians too, even ones who admired her. Here is what the chick from The Slits says about an encounter with her.

Ari was so cool. She died in 2010, at 48, of breast cancer. Ari was the step-daughter of Johnny Lydon, he's married to her mom Nora Forster, a German newspaper heiress. Johnny and Nora raised Ari's twin sons.

"In 2008, Ari was diagnosed with breast cancer. However she refused the physician-recommended chemotherapy. Lydon later commented; "who refuses chemo because they don’t want their Rasta locks cut off? Ariane was just…not sensible. She thought she could cure herself with witch doctors. We spent hundreds of thousands trying to save her, but it was too late."

[quote][[R12]], apparently she was a huge bitch to other female punk musicians too, even ones who admired her. Here is what the chick from The Slits says about an encounter with her.

Ari was so cool and funny, but was somewhat fucked up in her private life. She died in 2010, at 48, of breast cancer.

Ari was the step-daughter of Johnny Lydon, he's married to her mom Nora Forster, a German newspaper heiress. Johnny and Nora raised Ari's twin sons.

"In 2008, Ari was diagnosed with breast cancer. However she refused the physician-recommended chemotherapy. Lydon later commented; "who refuses chemo because they don’t want their Rasta locks cut off? Ariane was just…not sensible. She thought she could cure herself with witch doctors. We spent hundreds of thousands trying to save her, but it was too late."

[quote] I’d be tempted (today at least) to wonder if Smith wanted Ari out of the dressing room because she was a minor, only 14. But then there are also stories of peers being bullied in the same way.

PLEASE stop defending the unhinged Patti Smith.

The encounter described by Ari is EXACTLY the way Patti screamed at my friend at Max's Kansas City. This was an ongoing pattern with that scrawny Smith bitch. Patti was always jealous of other performers and people she feared had more talent than she had. Especially extremely attractive and talented women such as Debbie Harry.

Didn't you hear Ari say, she was already in her band The Slits, so she sure had a valid reason to be backstage. Does anyone pay attention anymore?!

One of the least convincing mtf people i have ever known.

God, I fucking hate Patti Smith.

It's NOT true to say she's not a good songwriter. "Frederick" (to name one) is a lovely song about her love for her husband and there's nothing punk or phony about it at all. "Dancing Barefoot" is pretty impressive too.

Otherwise I generally agree with the naysayers here. I still haven't figured out how she managed to win a National Book Award, but she's cultivated her reputation very shrewdly.

[quote]It's NOT true to say she's not a good songwriter. "Frederick" (to name one) is a lovely song about her love for her husband and there's nothing punk or phony about it at all. "Dancing Barefoot" is pretty impressive too.

Wait, let's roll this back a bit. Patti might have written the lyrics, she's supposedly a 'poet', yet you seem to forgot she had actual MUSICIANS in her band, the guys most likely wrote all the music, not Patti.

The actual music is the main aspect of, well, pop music! 😂 🤣😂 🤣. If the public doesn't like the music, they could give a shit about making a song a hit. Fact.

Sam Shepard used to fuck her. There are photos of them acting all lovey dovey. What was he on? Anyway, after her book "Just Kids" came out he mildly refuted her romantic version of living in squalor with Mapplethorpe while they worked on their "art", dismissing that kind of existence as just "street life."

I don't know how she got into the Hall of Fame without Lenny Kaye and the other three band members.

She wrote poetry and read it to her audience.

When Kaye started joining her on stage playing his guitar while she recited, that's where the idea to start a band originated.

Kaye knew Patti Smith's singing range was extremely limited and he put all of her words to music in a key that made her singing acceptable.

I like a good number of her songs, but I thought she was a better person than to accept a nomination without the band that made her whole career happen.

Imagine Jim Morrison in the Hall without the Doors. That's Patti Smith.

[quote]One of the least convincing mtf people i have ever known.

I might dislike Patti the Poseur, but she was NEVER a man. Where do you get this shit?

Patti had two kids with Fred 'Sonic' Smith. In 2009, Patti's son Jackson married Meg White, former White Stripes drummer and ex-wife of Jack White. Meg and Jackson Smith divorced in July 2013.

Patti and her kids. The son isn't bad looking. The daughter looks like she could be Bruce Springsteen's kid!

Well, I really like her. My late best friend & I wore out two copies of Horses in 1980.

Radio Ethiopia, Easter, Wave, “Ravens”, all great.

I’m glad she screamed at your friend R24 (please post how much you hate her a sixth time), you both seem annoying.

I only wish zombie Lou Reed were here to scream at you & your friend.

Frederick

'Because the Night'

Dancing Barefoot

[quote]you seem to forgot she had actual MUSICIANS in her band, the guys most likely wrote all the music, not Patti.

It's kind of sexist to assume that she was incapable of writing her own music. She has sole writing credit on a lot of her songs.

Insufferable.

R53, Video for 'Grateful'

I won't add much other than Patti Smith's mythology is central to a continuing mythology of post-WWII NYC. Mythologies aren't necessarily untrue...

I love the first four PSG albums; this song is my favorite:

[quote]should i pursue a path so twisted

[quote]should i crawl, defeated and guilty

[quote]It's kind of sexist to assume that she was incapable of writing her own music. She has sole writing credit on a lot of her songs.

Sexist? It has nothing to do with sexism. Why assume Patti can write music? You have no idea what goes on behind the scenes in music. I have working musicians in my family, some were session musicians. There's a lot of lying going on. A LOT. A lot of mythology and hype too. Every famous musician has an 'interesting' backstory and most of it isn't true.

You have no idea what sort of deals go on in a lawyer's office re how certain musicians barter to get credit for music they didn't even write.

Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Mer (De)

Overrated

Frederick is based on a guitar riff of a Springsteen song.

I think she cleverly built her fame on her looks. She never was an even good singer and most.of her lyrics were/are pretentious as hell.

I have a friend who knew Smith in her CBGB days and he thinks she is the biggest phony there is. He cannot stand her.

[quote] "Her writing seems wildly over-praised, and mischaracterizes Mapplethorpe as more saintly than he was.

"Just Kids" struck me as a fairytale version of her relationship with Mapplethorpe. I mean, it just didn't sound real at all.

[quote]Frederick is based on a guitar riff of a Springsteen song.

That's a shame. I like "Frederick" and I listen to it a lot. Which Springsteen song?

[quote]They're invariably like this: "Blah blah Robert (Mapplethorpe), blah blah Dylan, blah blah Rimbaud, blah blah Allen Ginsberg, blah blah William Burroughs"...and so on and so on. Unbearable.

There is a recent "Writers&Company" podcast interview with Smith where she goes through her usual list of artists she likes. Interestingly, she is bad at pronouncing foreign names and surnames. A bit odd for a musician.

I could see Fred Armisen doing an impersonation of Patti, traveling the world and having her photo taken at the graves of better poets then her.

She does posses talent but instead she chooses to name drop and travel the world visiting the homes and resting places of the world's dead poets and artists. Rather tiring and affected.

One of her latest books, Devotion, was a total snooze fest. Namedropping stories, with a rather slight short story tagged on. It felt like a contractual left over.

People say she is a feminist, a strong woman, but she seems to fawn over dead famous male poets and artists - not very 'sisterhood' of her.

She seems to be the type that would look down on low-brow taste, and then, would 'discover' something low-brow and praise how 'honest and real' it is (when so many average people having been saying the same thing for eons).

I heard she secretly likes McNuggets.

I liked her a lot in HS and early college. I knew she was a faker, poser, striver, social climber, but she whipped up some successful productions, a career, her minor legend. By the 90's I had zero interest in her, and til today. She is what she is. I've run into Patti socially and her energy is positive, she smiles and she doesn't seek attention.

Of course she's a name-dropper and a poseur, and was probably pretty unpleasant, and yes, she made up a fairy-tale romance with Mapplethorpe, who, by the way, was rather repellent as a person and an overrated artist (compared to, say, Peter Hujar).

None of that eradicates what Smith did that's good. I like a fair amount of her music. Clearly, she's a good writer. Her first memoir, if you can get around the name-dropping and the self-importance (and you can), is quite good.

The tedious rants here remind me of people raving against Yoko Ono: so what?

She's fine. She sends her love.

There is nothing better than listening to Birdland after smoking a joint.

And Taylor Mac adores her.

Did she ever find her first child? The one she gave up for adoption?

I find it strange she would be considered a feminist. She clearly hated other women. She wanted to have the honor of being the only girl accepted into the boys club. I remember her saying she didn't want to see anyone with tits on stage playing guitar. I think that's why she had such a butch look. I also recall her saying if she and Fred hadn't both been named Smith that she would have changed her name. Once she left NY and had kids she thought being a wife and mother was what women were intended for.

I do think she's somewhat correct about mothers having more empathy, but not from having born children. Mothers spend a lot of time thinking about and anticipating someone else's needs instead of their own. This is also true of fathers who participate in the caregiving , people who care for their elderly parents or any caregivers. It's the act of focusing on another person that makes you more empathetic, not something magical in the uterus.

Thought she was cool.

Then I read "Just Kids".

Kill her with fire.

"Once she left NY and had kids she thought being a wife and mother was what women were intended for."

Really, r56? She said that? I'd love to see the link. I'm also not sure she ever identified herself in any special way as being a feminist.

Patti Smith wrote "Pissing In A River." That's enough for me. Fuck the haters.

R56 Right on.

R56, regarding hating other women, that is so common among many white feminist types who love to go on and on about how all women should "support" each other even as they rip them apart. Case-in-point: Patti Smith.

More case-in-points: Madonna (who I am a fan of) and Taylor Swift.

"that is so common among many white feminist types"

Sweeping generalization much, r61?

I think the media and/or her fans were the ones to ID Patti as a feminist. I don't recall she ever applied the label to herself.

Her presence fronting a rock band, playing guitar, wearing men's clothing, singing something other than love songs: it was unprecedented in pop music. She broke new ground.

OTOH, it's true that (like Joni Mitchell) she has never been overly supportive (if at all) of other female artists. Her heroes are male poets, painters, musicians, and like Joni, she sees the world and art through their eyes.

[quote]In 2015, writer Anwen Crawford observed that Smith's "attitude to genius seems pre-feminist, if not anti-feminist; there is no democratizing, deconstructing impulse in her work."

I have yet to read anything she said wherein she particularly identifies as a feminist.

R63, nope. It's part of American history, actually. White feminists typically ignored the concerns of black and other minority women. Susan B. Anthony was a huge racist and was pissed black men got the right to vote before white women did.

R64, Joni Mitchell has rarely had a good word to say about anyone.

"Susan B. Anthony was a huge racist and was pissed black men got the right to vote before white women did."

That didn't make her a huge racist, r66. The article I read in The New Yorker on Frederick Douglass mentioned this, btw. So, no.

R23, aside from not choosing to do chemo, did Ari do any other odd things in her personal life?

R68, please read.

You mean like screaming at the top of her lungs in a gallery, r69?

Sure thing, r70. And then you can read that New Yorker article.

[quote] Did she ever find her first child? The one she gave up for adoption?

That's one question that journalist avoid asking when it comes to Patti Smith. Which is why I was surprised to read an interview where she was asked about it. Smith said that keeping the baby was not possible and that she never tried to find her daughter (I believe it was a girl). So there is a middle aged woman out there somewhere who may look and sound like Patti Smith and, for all we know, live a life of a regular frau. Or maybe not.

R73, I shudder at the thought. Btw, Patti Smith was also on an episode of Law and Order Criminal Intent (talk about random), and she was supposed to be some kind of professor. I think she literally had one sentence of dialogue. Not sure why she was in that episode.

I've been listening to Patti Smith ever since "Horses' was released and I always thought she identified with the Punk Movement.

I have never seen her call herself a feminist in any interviews.

I've seen her in concert, same thing. She did all of the stereotypical Punk spitting on stage, cursing up a storm, but she never introduced any of her songs as having a feminist theme.

I don't recall her ever slamming female artists.

R75, she was a bitch to any female artist who she found threatening.

The degree to which she was a bitch to any female artist is unknown. The key part of your sentence: who she found threatening. She was a climber, and a not very pretty one, and she was female. No wonder why she wanted to be the only girl in the boy's world of rock and roll. Plus she had those adolescent Rimbaud pretensions and then a gay boyfriend, who turned out to be an even bigger climber than she, and rejected her for rich daddies.

R77, seriously? All the postings above didn't show how much of a bitch she was to other women? She is clearly one VERY insecure woman.

It's too bad Fred Smith died prematurely. Maybe she would have disappeared forever into the life of a middle class matron and mother. She deferred to him when it came to everything; I think he just wanted her to be a wife and mother. If he had lived, I don't think she ever would have tried to resurface as a celebrity. God, I wish Fred Smith had survived!

For those in the know, how accurate was Gilda Radner's Candy Slice parody of Smith?

@ 28 seconds, R80?

It's become a bit of an amusing conflation of Smith as cultural icon--very academic. "What kind of feminist is she?" crossed with "she was a bitch to other women." She was a climber and she had a certain panache, and filled a niche--the female punk star. Now, she carries that mantel because everyone thought to bestow it upon her, and it would be disingenuous to says has absolutely no claim to it. What else is there to say?

R82, there were other women in punk who were far more talented and made better music than Smith--Siouxsie Sioux, Debbie Harry, Poly Styrene and Exene Cervenka. None of those women, even Exene, were anywhere near as insufferable as she was/is. And nothing they wrote was as pretentious as the average Smith song or as ill-advised as "Rock N Roll N*****".

R81, Yes that's what I was referring to. I didn't know who she was suppose to be until years later so I was just wondering if it was somewhat accurate or not.

R84, the way she performs in that clip reminds me of Mick Jagger (who I also cannot stand). No wonder I don't like her.

R82, I know there were other women (punk, mind you) who had a right to it. I repeat what I said: climber. Filled a niche.

^That was for r83.

R85, Well she was singing a song called "Gimme Me Mick".

Candy Slice was referencing Patti not really supposed to be only Patti

Patti is certainly one of the greatest. Love all her writings and music.

I’ve never heard her comment on the song “Rock N Roll N*****”. If she tried to perform it today, there would definitely be a backlash.

I'm a little baffled by posters going off on Patti Smith being a "social climber" in the rock world.

Who wasn't trying to climb to the top?

I have to laugh at the Exene Cervenka name dropping like she's supposed to mean something.

I liked some of X's music, but I had never seen anybody credit their "vocal coach" until Excene did on their records.

Excene was a helluva punk rocker (lol)….

It's sweet that John Lydon and his wife became guardians to Ari Up's kids before and after her death.

Does anyone remember that profile article of Smith, I believe it was in the New Yorker, from some years ago? The journalist met her at her place (loft, I believe) downtown. She was terribly unpleasant.

"She was terribly unpleasant."

She always seems terrible unpleasant. I've always been creeped out by her interviews; her affect and speaking voice are a complete turn off, as is her appearance.

R91, many people hold X's music in good regard. The music of Patti Smith will not be remembered, unlike the Sex Pistols, Clash, etc.

Love her and she was good for those of us who felt like outsiders (even if we were waist deep in, say, a fraternity like I was). She was one of those that made different cool, a far more important thing when one is young than now. And "Because the Night" had a real homoerotic edge for me anyway.

r101 has it right. Patti Smith won't be remembered, r95? But X will? LOL.

"And "Because the Night" had a real homoerotic edge for me anyway."

That song was an odd collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. I think he took pity on her and helped her create that song; she'd never had a hit record and he wanted to help her. Anyway, it was a hit but some critics thought it was a come down for Smith. Here she was, the "High Priestess of Punk", the "Poet Laureate of Punk", singing drivel like "because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us." I thought the song was a piece of shit.

Jen Cloher sounds like Patti.

Interesting, R99. I'm not familiar with Jen Cloher.

She has Patti's delivery down for the most part, and with a vocal range far wider than Patti ever had.

I'm a Patti fan, still. As someone said upthread, she navigated her limited voice very well, and expressively.