is there anything wrong with this picture at all? her expression, the shirt, her hands, the little pin on her blazer.... wow. surely, surely, you say, no album can live up to the promise of such a superfantasticamazing cover? surely we should just throw the cd out the window and stick the picture on the wall?
a fair assumption but, luckily, as far from the truth as i am from the explanet pluto. i have spent the last ten mintues trying to desricbe just how good this album is, but it's not really possible. Gloria is a wonderful, furious first track, patti smith's voice all thick with sex, and it only gets better. the way smith sings, speaks, growls leaves me speechless. she is so singular. there is noone that sounds like her. all the way through, smith's prowling singing is complemented by this angular, arresting guitardrumpiano.
and, and the words, the articulation.. oh. just, oh. one of my favourites at the moment is from elegie:
'There must be something I can dream tonight,
The air is filled with the moves of you'.
so, she's an amazing poet and musican. her voice is strong and honest, and goes from a purr to a shout to a quiet rhythmic hum, like she's reading you a poem . she's sexual but not dependant on her sexuality to sell her work. is that enough? no. she also happens to be the coolest looking person ever.
i adore the way she dresses: highwaisted, tight jeans, loose boyteeshirts, blazers, stompy boots; all made more perfect with thin chain necklaces, badges, ribbons as bracelets, big rings. and it's not just what she wears but the fact that her whole appearance fits her. she doesn't look like she's trying to play up to anyone else's ideas of what she ought to look like, or what's cool; she looks so utterly at ease, so utterly self possesed. i can't imagine what it would be like to see her live- there is so much power just in these photo snatches of her, in her recorded voice.
and is she any less cool now? is she like fuck.
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