Tag: feminism

Episode 3.5: Raw Like Sushi

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Raw Like Sushi – Neneh Cherry – Virgin – 1989

By 1989, 25-year-old Neneh Cherry had already lived multiple vibrant lives. The child of bohemians (her mother, artist Moki Cherry, and her step-father, jazz musician Don Cherry). The 14-year-old high school dropout-turned-downtown-club-kid. The 16-year-old touring the UK with The Slits. The lead singer of post-punk band Rip Rig + Panic. Wife and mother. Divorced single mother, lover, and collaborator. All of these eclectic experiences and identities shape the 10 tracks of Cherry’s debut solo album Raw Like Sushi. Like Cherry, the album is impossible to pin down as one thing; it’s feisty and assertive, using a melting pot of influences from rap to funk to dance pop to convey a young woman’s truths without waiting for permission to do so.

Though the album is nearly 30 years old, it’s one we have found ourselves listening to often in recent months, marveling at its prescience and continued relevancy. Not only do we hear 2018 ring in its girl power-inspiring anthems, assertions of female sexuality, or rebuking of Men Behaving Badly. We hear its decade-defining production reflected in current artists attempting to recreate specific dated sounds of the past — and use this album as a reminder that we need to understand where we have been to know where we are going.

In this episode, we unpack the layers of this album’s lasting sonic influence, discuss and debate the ways its topics remain relevant in today’s cultural and political climate, and salute Neneh Cherry’s prolific unfuckwithable baddiness.

Listen to Raw Like Sushi: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes

Episode notes and postscript corrections

  • Hey, hi, hello! Our apologies for our lengthy absence, but this is our side hustle and our real lives got lowkey busy, but we’re back!
  • This album is only two years older than us. Is that weird?
  • Shoutout to Viv Albertine and her dope 2014 memoir for turning us on to Neneh Cherry.
  • Peep our further watching links below to see Neneh performing with the Slits.
  • “We went over [to America] with our funny little posse from London. And in the black department, [“Buffalo Stance”] wasn’t black enough, and in the white department, it was too black. So it was just this weird middle satellite, floating around.” — Neneh Cherry, Pitchfork, 2014
  • Okay but “Kisses On The Wind” brings up such a complicated discussion about girls acting older than they are and the ramifications, false (or maybe not!) confidences, and power dynamics involved. We could talk all day about this stuff; hit us up if you have thoughts.
  • While we’re randomly talking about Paula Abdul, please enjoy this, the single greatest video on the internet.
  • We’re both super into this weird current music trend we’ve been in for a couple of years now with bops throwing it back to ‘80s production techniques. (Hi Jack Antonoff! Hi Rostam! Hi Dev Hynes!)
  • We could spend a longgggg time talking about how many artists Neneh Cherry has inspired, but to save space, we’ll just direct you to our massive Spotify master playlist for a bunch of recommended listening.
  • After an 18-year absence, Neneh Cherry is back on her game, making great music for our times. Her latest release, this month’s Broken Politics, is no exception.
  • As always, find and follow us on Facebook and Twitter if you don’t already.

Favorite track(s): Buffalo Stance and Inna City Mama (Carly) | Buffalo Stance and Heart (Carrie)
Least favorite track: Love Ghetto (Carly) | Inna City Mamma (Carrie)

Album credits:

  • Neneh Cherry — Vocals, programming
  • Sandy McLelland — Background vocals
  • Chandra Armstead — Background vocals
  • Cameron “Booga Bear” McVey — Background vocals, executive producer, mixing, beats
  • Phil Chill — Programming, beats, background vocals
  • Claudia Fontaine — Background vocals
  • Nellee Hooper — Vibraphone
  • Jerod — Guitar
  • Alvin Moody — Bass
  • Nick Plytas — Programming
  • Jeff Scantlebury — Conga
  • John Sharp — Programming
  • Tim Simenon — Beats
  • Dynamik Duo — Beats
  • Mark Saunders — Multi-instruments, beats
  • Wil Malone — Conductor, programming, string arrangements
  • Gordon Dukes — Background vocals
  • Mushroom — Programming

Further watching:
Montreux Jazz Festival interview | 2012
Performance + Interview on Arsenio Hall | 1993
“Manchild” live on Top of the Pops | 1989
”Buffalo Stance” live on Top of the Pops | 1988
The Slits – The Man Next Door live | 1981

Further reading:
Neneh Cherry Never Stopped Taking Risks. Now She’s Making Politics Personal | New York Times (October 2018)
Neneh Cherry Is Back and More Fashionable Than Ever | Vogue (August 2018)
Raw Like Sushi Sunday Review | Pitchfork (April 2018)  
Neneh Cherry Will Get an Overdue New York Debut | New York Times (January 2015)
Disorienting Eclecticism: Neneh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi Revisited | The Quietus (May 2014)
Raw Like Sushi review | BBC (2009)
Neneh Cherry: Homestyle | Rolling Stone (February 1993)

Episode 3.4: The Marble Index

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The Marble Index – Nico – Elektra – 1968

Although she had been a presence in the New York’s downtown music scene in the ’60s, Nico didn’t begin writing her own songs until late 1967. Dismayed at the finished product of her first solo album, 1967’s Chelsea Girl, she started to pen her own poems, exploring the truth of her own experiences and putting it to haunting harmonium music. Rejecting the Warhol Factory persona that had given her fame, if not artistic satisfaction, Nico allowed herself to outwardly display her inner darkness: she stopped dying her hair platinum blonde, opting for dark red instead, and took to wearing all black. Though many critics believed this was a character she was adopting to make the album seem more authentic, what they were actually seeing, along with the rest of the world, was a free woman. Here was an artist giving herself the room to turn her own reality into art, no matter how messy, dark, and frightening that reality could be. For a woman in 1968, this wasn’t just an odd rarity; it was trailblazing.

Cited by many as the first goth album, The Marble Index went on to influence a number of artists in the goth rock movement that grew out of late-1970s post-punk, including Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus. Within her strident, discordant, and atonal sounds, Nico created an album that carved out a place in mainstream commercial music for artists, notably female artists, who express because they have to — even if you’re not sure that you like what you hear.

In this episode, we unpack the album’s influences and lasting influence, both Nico’s triumphs and and her myriad problems, and just what makes this album so difficult for many to listen to.

Listen to The Marble Index: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes

Episode notes and postscript corrections

  • PSA: This episode deals with dark and heavy subject material. If you’re not feeling your best right now, take care of you and listen with discretion.
  • If your only familiarity with Nico is her work with the Velvet Underground or Chelsea Girl, brace yourselves, because you are in for one bizarre ride.
  • TBH Nico often expressed a problematic lot of internalized misogyny (among many more Very Bad No Good Horrible views)
  • The Marble Index is pointed to as the first goth album by several goth rock bands from the ‘80s
  • Check out our further reading links below for Lester Bangs’ take on The Marble Index. If *he* was scared of it, you know it’s some heavy stuff.
  • Sad girls of tumblr = Chelsea Girl. IRL depression = The Marble Index.
  • “Women are poison. If I wasn’t so special, I could hate myself.” — Nico. See, we said she was problematic.
  • Here’s the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that Carly was reminded of by “Frozen Warnings”
  • A thought: very few women were making “dark” music in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s — and certainly none in the vein of Nico — but women were exploring depression and anxiety and bleak themes in literature.
    • Read some of Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays while listening to this album if you wanna get fucked up.
  • No, seriously, Nico told so many lies about herself that someone named a biography of her The Life and Lies of an Icon
  • An enormous shoutout to Danny Fields, Jac Holzman, and John Cale for being awesome men who championed Nico and pushed for this album to be made, regardless of whether or not it would sell.
  • As always, check out our master playlist on Spotify to listen to all the tracks we talked about in this episode, including a slew of legacy influences.
    • Here’s Carly’s goth rock playlist
    • Nico : The Marble Index :: Kim Gordon : Body/Head. Even though Sonic Youth got their start more rooted in noise and no wave, it was a huge change for Kim Gordon after the more melodic music she made in Sonic Youth’s final days.
  • Share all your thoughts with us!

Favorite track(s): Frozen Warnings (Carly) | Frozen Warnings and Ari’s Song (Carrie)
Least favorite track: Facing the Wind (Carly) | Julius Caesar (Memento Hodié) (Carrie)

Album credits:

  • Nico — Words, music, harmonium, vocals
  • John Cale — Arrangements
  • John Haeny — Engineer
  • Frazier Mohawk — Producer
  • Jac Holzman — Production supervisor


Further watching:
Nico, 1988 trailer | 2018  
Nico, Icon (documentary) | 1995  
Unknown New Zealand TV interview | 1985
“Evening Of Light” short film | 1969 

Further reading:
Made You Look: On Beauty, Ugliness, and Nico (ed. note: If you only read one of these pieces, wowwowwow make it this one) | The Ringer (August 2018)
7 Musicians Reflect on Nico’s Enduring Influence | New York Times T Magazine (August 2018)
Thirty Years After Her Death, Nico Finally Comes Into Focus | Pitchfork (April 2018)
The influence and tragedy of Nico | i-D (March 2017)
Nico and The Marble Index: “She hated the idea of being beautiful” | Uncut (October 2015)
Nico: Facing The Wind – The Marble Index trilogy | The Quietus (January 2013)
You won’t enjoy Nico’s album, but it’s good for you | The Guardian (October 2008)
The Frozen Borderline: 1968-70 deluxe reissue review | Pitchfork (March 2007)
Your Shadow Is Scared of You: An Attempt Not to Be Frightened By Nico (ed. note: This is some Lester Bangs goodness) | New Wave Rock (1978)

Episode 3.2: Viv Albertine talks Dionne Warwick, the Slits, feminism, and more

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The Slits now-iconic 1979 debut Cut is an unusual, but delightful, melting pot of sounds: strains of UK punk mix with Jamaican reggae, girlish chants dance with abrasive DIY noise. Slipping between the grooves and finding a home within the mix — perhaps most indecipherably, or even curiously, to the casual listener — is the influence of the early-60s pop standards of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach.

Growing up in post-war Britain in the 1960s, Slits guitarist Viv Albertine heard plenty of Warwick’s hits while listening to pop radio. Later, as a scrappy young woman running around London with next to no money and not much to do in the early-to-mid ‘70s, she came across a compilation album — Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Part One — in a used record shop with her bandmates. It became not just an album that they spent countless hours listening to together, playing it front-to-back over and over again, but one they — particularly Viv and lead singer Ari Up — would study, dissecting songs to their individual parts and taking note of the details, attempting to learn how to emulate Warwick and Bacharach in their own unique way.

For the past 40 years, the Slits have served as touchstones for female musicians, often cited for blazing a necessary trail for the coming riot grrrl movement and beyond. Today, we have the privilege of being able to look to Viv Albertine, and the Slits as a whole, for inspiration and empowerment, and are finally beginning to see their important role in history recognized in more mainstream circles. But in their formative years, female role models, particularly musicians, were much harder to come by; Dionne Warwick was one of them.

In this very special episode, we are so pleased to discuss Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Part One with Viv Albertine herself. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation that touches upon Warwick, Bacharach, and Hal David’s influence on the Slits’ music, as well as their own lives as young women in late-70s and early-80s London, the importance of representation, and so much more.

Listen to Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Part One: Spotify | YouTube
Listen to the Slits’ Cut: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes
(and while you’re there, rate and review us in the iTunes store)

Read the full transcript of our interview with Viv Albertine here

Episode notes and postscript corrections

First and foremost: We’ve said this a million times, but we truly cannot recommend Viv’s books more or praise them highly enough. Both have had a tremendous impact on us, and we have yet to meet anyone who has read either and cannot say the same.

Support your local small bookstore or check them out here:
To Throw Away Unopened | 2018
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. | 2014 

Follow our master playlist on Spotify to hear every song we discussed today
Follow Viv Albertine on Facebook and Twitter 
Follow ’77 Music Club on Facebook and Twitter or shoot us an email if you have thoughts

Further watching:
Here to be Heard: The Story of The Slits documentary trailer | 2017
Viv Albertine in conversation at British Library | 2016
The Culture Show: Girls Will Be Girls (BBC women in punk documentary) | 2014
“Typical Girls” music video | 1979
The Slits live performance and interview | 1970s; specific year unknown

Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach: Live at the Rainbow Room | 1996
Burt Bacharach… This Is Now (BBC documentary) | 1996
“Walk On By” live | 1965
“Don’t Make Me Over” live | 1963

Further reading: 
On Viv and the Slits
New Doc on The Slits Questions Why These Pioneering Punks Have Been Overlooked | Paper (May 2018)
Viv Albertine Has Used Her Rage to Write Herself into Punk History | Noisey (April 2018)
The Slits Are Refusing to be Written Out of Music History | Noisey (October 2017)
The Slits’ Viv Albertine Defaces Male-Focused Punk Exhibition | Pitchfork (July 2016) ed note: HYFR, BAMF move.
How we made Cut | The Guardian (June 2013)
Like Choosing a Lover: Viv Albertine’s Favorite Albums | The Quietus (April 2013)
Girls Unconditional: The story of the Slits, told exclusively by the Slits | Loud and Quiet (July 2009)
Cut re-release album review | Pitchfork (February 2005)

On Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David
Anyone Who Had a Heart: My Life and Music (Burt Bacharach’s memoir) | 2014
My Life, as I See It  (Dionne Warwick’s memoir) | 2010

50 Essential Albums of 1967: Dionne Warwick’s Golden Hits, Part 1 | Rolling Stone (September 2017)
Burt Bacharach interview: what was it all about? | The Telegraph (June 2013)
Dionne Warwick: ‘I refused a couple of Bacharach and David songs’ | The Guardian (November 2012)
Dionne Warwick sings Hal David’s last lyrics | CNN (September 2012)
Music And Lyrics: Burt Bacharach and Hal David | NPR (May 2010)
Bacharach and David: Reconciled and Honored | LA Times (May 1993)
Singers: Spreading the Faith | Time (July 1967)

 

Episode Credits:
Creator and co-host: Carly Jordan
Co-host, editor, producer: Carrie Courogen
Special thanks to: Becky Kraemer and Viv Albertine

Viv Albertine talks Dionne Warwick, the Slits, feminism, and more (full transcript)

The following phone interview conversation took place on June 24, 2018. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Carly Jordan: Thank you so much for talking to us for the show. I was really psyched that you wanted to talk about Dionne Warwick.

Viv Albertine: Oh, Dionne Warwick, yes! You don’t think that was a weird one?

CJ: No, I didn’t think that was weird at all.

Carrie Courogen: No.

CJ: We didn’t think that was weird.

CC: We thought it was really interesting.

CJ: Because in your first book, I remember reading about all of the different artists that influenced you when you were coming up in the ‘70s, and none of them were what I thought they were gonna be, and they were so varied and so interesting. So, I was not at all surprised that you chose Dionne Warwick.

VA: Oh, good! [laughs]

CJ: So, when did Dionne Warwick first come to your attention and what about her voice stuck out to you in particular?

VA: Well, I think I first probably heard Dionne Warwick in the ‘60s when I was just listening to chart music, because she had a couple of hits, but the reason I chose the album was because it was one of about four albums we had within the Slits, when we all sort of lived together and shared everything and had to go everywhere together because just the way we dressed enacted — we were being attacked all the time, so we spent so much time together and we just sort of pulled the few things we had. And, back in those days, you know you had a few albums ‘cause they cost so much. We got Dionne Warwick, I think, Golden Hits, Part One, which is her singing the Burt Bacharach – Hal David songs, from the record exchange shop, so, it was a used copy. And we absolutely sort of studied it, you know?

Continue reading “Viv Albertine talks Dionne Warwick, the Slits, feminism, and more (full transcript)” →

Episode 3.1: Eli and the Thirteenth Confession

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Eli and the Thirteenth Confession – Laura Nyro – Columbia – 1968

The source of inspiration for her peers and generations of songwriters to come, Bronx-born Laura Nyro has a legacy that has only grown in legend and mysticism since her untimely death in the early ‘90s. Lauded by Carole King, likened to Joni Mitchell, and emulated by some of today’s cleverest singer-songwriters, her style was singular, speaking of and to the female experience in a way that was at once specific and universal, relatable and abstract.

In this episode, we comb through her 1968 album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, a collection of songs so rife with evocative imagery and sense of self that it brought up many of our own memories, connections to our own experiences as young women in 2018, and of course, musical earworms. For a 50-year-old album recorded and produced by a 20-year-old girl, this prodigious record still remains astonishingly relevant.

Listen to Eli and the Thirteenth Confession: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes

Episode notes and postscript corrections

  • Hello, and welcome to a new season of the pod! Literally nothing has changed; we’re just calling it a new season because we took a break (because we are our own bosses who determine when and why we go on hiatus and when and why we come back!)
  • Some things we mentioned to check out:
    • The Rock & Roll Explorer Guide to New York City is a dope book if you’re into New York and music and history and where they all intersect and want to know where everything happened. We were pleased to moderate the discussion for the book’s launch at Rough Trade this week.
    • ‘80s Redux is a dope book if you’re into music and the ‘80s and photography of cool people doing cool things.
  • We’re gonna talk about this a lot because we’re so stunned by it, but something to keep in mind during this whole thing: Laura Nyro was just 20 when this was made. TWENTY.
  • Don’t forget to hit up and follow our master playlist on Spotify to hear all these songs, the covers that actually made money, and more!
  • “YES, WE KNOW.” — all of you when Carrie says she hates flutes
  • See our further watching links below to see the debut of “Poverty Train” at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Cry your eyes out when you hear they were yelling “beautiful” at her, knowing she spent her whole life since thinking they were booing.
  • Evergreen Take: “Dated” doesn’t always necessarily mean bad or unenjoyable.
  • “Lonely Women” clearly created a divide in interpretation between the two of us. Slide into our DMs or email us to let you know what you think. It’s complicated and we’re interested.
  • See our further reading links below for some more info about Laura Nyro’s relationship with Maria Desidero, who may or may not have been the inspiration for “Timer” and “Emmie.”

Favorite track(s): Luckie and Timer (Carly) | Eli’s Comin’ and Stoned Soul Picnic (Carrie)
Least favorite track: December’s Boudoir (Carly) | December’s Boudoir (Carrie)

Album credits:

  • Laura Nyro — piano, vocal, harmonies, “witness to the confession”
  • Ralph Casale — acoustic guitar
  • Chet Amsterdam — acoustic guitar, bass
  • Hugh McCracken — electric guitar
  • Chuck Rainey — bass
  • Artie Schroeck — drums, vibes
  • Buddy Saltzman — drums
  • Dave Carey — percussion
  • Bernie Glow, Pat Calello, Ernie Royal — trumpet
  • George Young, Zoot Sims — saxophone
  • Wayne Andre, Jimmy Cleveland, Ray DeSio — trombone
  • Joe Farrell — saxophone, flute
  • Paul Griffin — piano on “Eli’s Comin'” and “Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)”

Further watching:
Laura Nyro in the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame | 2014
Laura Nyro’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction | 2012
Alice Cooper discusses his love for Laura Nyro (ed note: OH MY GOD) | 2011
“Poverty Train” at the Monterey Pop Festival (with current intro from D.A. Pennebaker, Michelle Phillips, and Lou Adler) | 1967

Further reading: 
Laura Nyro remembered: “A musical force of nature” | Uncut (June 2017)
Laura Nyro’s Lasting, Eclectic Musical Legacy | NPR (December 2011)
Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, Maria Desiderio | Rabdrake Blog (October 2009)
An Enigma Wrapped in Songs | The New York Times (October 1997)
Laura Nyro’s legacy of passion | Entertainment Weekly (April 1997)

Episode 2.10: JUJU

siouxsie-and-the-banshees-juju

Juju – Siouxsie and the Banshees – Polydor – 1981

In 1981, British rock was in a transitional phase. Punk had, by then, all but completely faded out, and new wave and post-punk were shaping fresh ideas of how rock could sound. It was in this environment that Siouxsie and the Banshees were set to record their fourth album Juju. After going through a lineup change before their previous release, and with guitarist John McGeoch now cemented as an official member, the band was ready to experiment with their sound, to create lyrical and melodic concepts that would mesh together cohesively as one work. The band created and molded the songs for Juju while on tour, working the songs out live and letting them take the dark, theatrical, romantic shape that would give the album its singular sound, the final product of which would help define the subset of post-punk that would come to be known as “goth rock.”

In this episode, we discuss this move from punk to post-punk, detail the Banshees’ stylistic choices and conceptual soundscapes, and (surprise) have a conversation about feminism and punk rock.

Listen to Juju: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes

Episode notes and postscript corrections

  • Hello, and welcome to our first post-punk/goth rock episode!
  • Siouxsie and the Banshees use a ton of romantic imagery in their lyrics. We highly recommend following along and checking out the lyrics to each song here.
  • Hello, we’re never not on our feminist-soapbox bullshit, and Siouxsie and the Banshees are no exception.
    • See our further reading notes below for two woke as hell essays about the intersection of punk and feminist identity.
    • Siouxsie’s stylized look totally comes out of a stylized ‘60s girl group aesthetic — except she’s the one in charge, and you can tell she’s a totally unfuckwithable baddie.
    • Revisit our episode and our liner notes on Blondie’s Parallel Lines. We had A LOT to say about the way female artists created and controlled their own images — and the way that got twisted and co-opted by the media and their legacies.
    • Friendly reminder, though, that women can be smart and stylish at the same time!!! Women are complex creatures!!!
  • Be sure to follow our master soundtrack on Spotify for all the song references we’re dropping, from Brian Eno to Sonic Youth.
  • Shoutout to “Monitor” containing, like, three different meanings in one song. Words! They’re fun!
  • Is Sonic Youth the Kevin Bacon of rock and roll? Hit us up and tell us what you think, because we’ve talked about them in three episodes now, so.
  • We’re never not talking about how songs that were accepted in decades past would come off as problematic today. “Head Cut,” banger as it is, is definitely one of them.

Favorite track: Monitor and Spellbound (Carly) | Spellbound (Carrie)
Least favorite track(s): Night Shift (Carly) | Night Shift (Carrie)

Album credits

  • Siouxsie Sioux — vocals, guitar on “Sin in My Heart”
  • Steven Severin — bass
  • Budgie — drums, percussion
  • John McGeoch — guitar

Further watching:
What is Goth Music? A Brief Overview of Goth Subgenres | 2017
Rock Family Trees: Banshees and Other Creatures | 2001
Juju Live Tour | 1981
“Spellbound” music video | 1981
“Arabian Knights” music video | 1981
“Voodoo Dolly” live | 1981
Spellbound: The Story of John McGeoch (radio doc) | Date Unknown

Further reading:
The Story of Goth in 33 Songs | Pitchfork (October 2017)
In Romanticizing Riot Grrrl, We’ve Forgotten the Women of UK Punk That Paved the Way | Noisey (April 2015)
Siouxsie and the Banshees: “We Were Losing Our Minds” | Uncut (October 2014)
Dissecting the Deathly Mystique of Siouxsie and the Banshees | AV Club (July 2013)
Siouxsie and the Banshees: “We Were Losing Our Minds” | Uncut (October 2014)
Juju Re-Release Liner Notes | 2006
The Image of Siouxsie Sioux: Punk and the Politics of Gender | Academic paper (April 1995)

Episode 2.7: EASTER

Patti_Smith-Easter

Easter – Patti Smith Group – Arista – 1978

After a debilitating injury stood between her disjointed second album and the imminent recording of her third, Patti Smith wrote a poem that would inform her next collection of songs by taking her physical pain and turning it into sonic glory. The poem “Easter” detailed her own “resurrection,” her journey to triumph over hardship. A concept was born and the album that would share the poem’s title became Smith’s greatest commercial breakthrough.

Containing the monster hit “Because The Night,” the controversial “Rock N Roll N****r,” and raucous, protest-ready “Till Victory,” Easter is a celebration not only of human will, but of female power. Negotiating for complete creative control over her album (a year before 9 to 5 brought gender inequity in the workplace to the national spotlight), Smith made no concessions to how male record executives thought she should present herself. Appearing raw and unpolished on the album cover, growling her desires and bellowing her neuroses in her music, and standing by her artistic convictions, Patti Smith demanded that women be seen on their terms, exactly as they wanted to be.

Forty years on, Easter remains a catalyst for feminism, a stronghold for lyric poetry, and an icon of blood-pumping, heart-racing, hair-raising rock and roll.

Listen to Easter: iTunes | Spotify | YouTube

Subscribe on iTunes

Episode notes and postscript correction

  • While the cover of Horses was shot by Patti’s close friend and ex-boyfriend Robert Mappelthorpe (who has taken numerous stunning, iconic photos of her as a muse), Easter was shot by Lynn Goldsmith, who is one of our favorite rock photographers.
  • “How did everyone let Jimmy Iovine have a unibrow for, like, 30 years?” is truly one of the hard-hitting questions that keep us up at night. (No, really, it was just so so so bad.)
  • Discuss: who, if anyone, could Patti Smith be compared to, artistically?
  • Hi, we love when women sing men’s songs, bye.
    • Check out our further watching links below to see the rendition of “Because the Night” dedicated to Fred Smith this summer. (Sadly, it’s missing her introduction, but, yes, she really did say that.)
    • Be sure to hit up our master playlist on Spotify for all the song references we just dropped — from Jimmy Iovine’s “hello female singer, you should sing this male singer’s song” tracks to Patti Lupone’s take on “Because the Night” to the Garbage and Screaming Females cover
    • The Angelfish cover of “Kimberly” isn’t on Spotify, but you can listen to it here.
    • Unrelated but sort of related: could we call people on the phone more?
  • Here’s more info about the history of “Ghost Dance” as a Native American prayer song.
  • “Babelogue” is so full of wonderful imagery that you really should read the lyrics to it to fully digest it all.
  • “Rock and Roll N****r” is a prime example of “your fave is problematic.”
    • Here’s our friendly reminder that you can — and should — hold people you admire accountable for faults that can be fixed. To look the other way would be idol worship, and we don’t play like that.
    • Patti. Patti, Patti, Patti. WHY?
    • Discuss: Do you think this was a creative, artistic choice for the sake of art, or a deliberate decision made knowing it would push buttons and create controversy?
    • Moral of the story: WORDS. MATTER.
  • To learn more about this “wild woman” theory, check out this book that was recommended to us and we are now recommending to all of you.
  • Here’s a trailer for that movie “Privilege (Set Me Free)”
  • Patti. Babe…with that Sunday night CBGB reference, you super aren’t fooling anyone into viewing the subjects of this song as anonymous people. 
  • This is literally called Art Songs 101
  • Here’s a site that’s definitely not at all from the late-90s era of Geocities site building (nope, no way) about Arthur Rimbaud’s Une Saison En Hell.
  • GO. SEE. PATTI. SMITH. IF. YOU. CAN. AND. HAVE. NOT. DONE. SO.  ALREADY.
    • It will probably maybe definitely change your life.
    • READ. HER. BOOKS. (they’re in the further reading links below). They will gut you emotionally. 

Favorite track(s): Till Victory and Space Monkey (Carly) |Till Victory (Carrie)
Least favorite track: Rock and Roll N****r (Carly) | Privilege (Set Me Free) Carrie)

Album credits:
Patti Smith – vocals, guitar
Lenny Kaye – guitar, bass guitar, vocals
Jay Dee Daugherty – drums, percussion
Ivan Kral – bass guitar, vocals, guitar
Bruce Brody – keyboards, synthesizer

Richard Sohl – keyboards on “Space Monkey”
Allen Lainer – keyboards on “Space Monkey”
John Paul Fetta – bass on “Till Victory” and “Privilege”
Andi Ostrowe – percussion on “Ghost Dance”
Jim Maxwell – bagpipes on “Easter”

Further Watching:
“Because the Night” live in Central Park | 2017   
Patti Smith Interview: Advice to the Young | 2012 (ed note: HIGHLY RECOMMEND) 
Dream of Life (documentary) | 2009 
Patti Smith’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction | 2007
“Because the Night” on Old Grey Whistle Test | 1978 

Further Reading:
Devotion (Why I Write) | 2017
M Train | 2015
Just Kids | 2010
Babel | 1979

Patti Smith, The Godmother of Punk Rock, Shares Her ‘Devotion’ | WBUR (September 2017)
Easter review | Pitchfork (May 2017)
This advice. | Brooklyn by the Book (September 2016)
The Story of Feminist Punk in 33 Songs | Pitchfork (August 2016)
Easter review | Creem (June 1978)  
Patti Smith’s Top 40 Insurrection (the Lester Bangs review) | Phonograph Record  Magazine (May/June 1978)