Patti Smith - Twelve
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CD Details
Artist: Patti SmithBrand: Sony
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-04-24
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Are You Experienced?
- Everybody Wants To Rule The World
- Helpless
- Gimme Shelter
- Within You Without You
- White Rabbit
- Changing Of The Guards
- The Boy In The Bubble
- Soul Kitchen
- Smells Like Teen Spirit
- Midnight Rider
- Pastime Paradise
Music reviews of Twelve
Music Review: Skeptical At First, But Then, Pleasantly Surprised
Rating: 4 Stars
Every diehard fan of a particular band or musician at one time or another revisits the thought of "It'd be great if he/she/they covered (insert name of other favorite musician's song here)".
Being a casual, but persistent fan of Patti Smith, I hadn't given it much thought in her case. So, when it first came out and I read a review of "Twelve", I was a little skeptical when I saw the songs she had chosen; enough so, that I didn't immediately rush out to buy the album.
Recently, I was on a plane, and perused the CD choices in various categories available for listening. One of them was "Twelve", and I listened to most of it, was pleasantly surprised, and ended up buying it.
After listening to it a few times with better quality sound and listening environment than on a cross country flight (it doesn't take much), Smith's choice of covers and the way she put her own unique signature on them is even better than I had expected.
Ms. Smith wrote some comments in the liner notes about how she ended up choosing the songs she did, which allows the listener to gain a deeper meaning and context as well. In those notes, she also reveals how her daily life is guided by chance and small miracles, which spill over into her art.
For starters, on the cover is a picture of a tambourine made by, and given to Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe in the late 60s. Over the years, her art has been informed in large part by the deep and often spiritual relationships she's had in her life, including her friendship with Mapplethorpe.
Smith is often perceived as harsh and abrasive, which can be true, but she also has a very gentle, fragile emotional side that comes through
beautifully in many of her own songs (arguably more so in recent years), as well as in the ones she chose for "Twelve".
So, at first I was a little skeptical, but then was pleasantly surprised at the sound and "feel" of the cover songs on this record.
Description of Twelve
Both a stopgap release until Patti Smith writes another album's worth of material and a way to keep her name in front of the public after her highly publicized 2007 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this set of a dozen covers finds the singer/poet in an unusually reflective mode. Some of the sources are obvious for those familiar with Smith's influences (the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan), some less so (Paul Simon, Nirvana, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young), and a few come out of left field (the Allman Brothers Band, Stevie Wonder, Tears for Fears). Smith's innate class and approach guarantees there's nothing awful here, but there also isn't much that stamps these versions with her own vision. She does little more than deliver the words in her unique spoken/sung voice and--except for adding a banjo and her own poetry to an acoustic "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--keeps the arrangements close to the originals. At times she seems distant from the material, running through the Doors' "Soul Kitchen" and Young's "Helpless" with an oddly soulless detachment. Likewise, her band seems to be on autopilot, playing with little emotional involvement or attempts to bring fresh interpretations to tunes that are, with the exception of Dylan's "Changing of the Guard," surprisingly unimaginative choices. Considering the raging and extreme overhaul Smith did on Van Morrison's "Gloria" and the Who's "My Generation" in her younger days, this quieter, gentler approach seems flaccid, even bland in comparison. --Hal HorowitzAlbum-Oriented Rock (AOR) CDs
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