It is as if Patti Smith never made an album beyond Horses. In 2005, Legacy produced a newly remastered Legacy Edition of Horses for the fans of the punk poetess. And there it ended.
Radio Ethiopia followed Horses in 1976. Critics were fairly united in their (unfair) criticism of the album. For me, I appreciated her trying to expand on Horses with excellent tunes like “Ask the Angels”, “Pissing In A River”, and the long but enjoyable title track. Nevertheless, the album didn’t do as well as it was hoped it would. She followed it up with the commercially appreciated Easter. It was filled with excellence like the shared authorship of “Because The Night” (Springsteen), and the album’s other classic songs.
In 1979, Patti Smith released another classic, Wave. It had a great version of “So You Wanna Be A Rock N Roll Star”, as well as “Frederick”, “Dancing Barefoot”, “Wave”, “Hymn” and the rest of the album.
Then Patti dropped from sight until nine years later when she released Dream Of Life in 1988. From there, it’s a fairly steady stream of excellence (in my book) until after Banga (2012), in which she stopped releasing albums.
I get that anything after Wave will have to remain a casual interest forever for fans. For nine important years, she had effectively let the prime music years of her life dissipate before returning with a different Patti on Dream of Life. So, ok.
But those next three albums after Horses are still there.
Ignored.
I’m somewhat shocked that there aren’t remastered Anniversary Editions for those three. With 2017 rapidly drawing to an close and the 40th Anniversary passed on Radio Ethiopia, there is still 2018 for Easter, and 2019 for Wave.
I certainly hope I’m not disappointed. But it’s likely I will be.
