The alternative band Patti Smith compared to The Rolling Stones
Patti Smith was never meant to go along with the status quo. Since the first time she stepped up to the microphone to sing, Smith was about singing what was in her heart instead of making songs that would appease any corporate suit that was looking to make a quick buck. Although Smith may have been indebted to the world of poetry throughout most of her career, it was the sound of rock and roll that truly changed her life.
While Smith was coming into her own on the New York club scene, she was more interested in pouring over her poetry than joining a band. Looking at Rimbaud like she looked at Lou Reed, Smith found her voice by writing poetry that could communicate many different feelings in just a few lines of text.
Although her first stabs at spoken-word poetry may have gotten as much ridicule as they did praise, it wasn’t until Lenny Kaye stepped in that the crux of the band started to form. Playing the bare essentials that rock music thrived on, Horses would be one of the most enduring statements from that time, with Smith spitting in the face of what traditional rock and roll stood for.
By the time Smith had started seeing success off of singles like ‘Because the Night’, though, the underground music scene had started to change as well. While still known as one of the true poets of the rock world, the indie rock scene was slowly coming together, with Michael Stipe summoning up the courage to form the band R.E.M. after discussing Smith’s records with guitarist Peter Buck.
Even though the genre would see some of the greatest names in hair metal grace the top of the charts throughout the next decade, no one was prepared for the grunge revolution to kick in. Taking everything Smith had said to heart, many artists came out of the woodwork with songs that were never meant to be commercial, turning into anthems about being bored with the modern age.
Out of all the bands to come out of the woodwork, none of them shined as bright as Nirvana. Taking his inner torment and putting Beatles-esque melodies behind him, Kurt Cobain created the benchmark for alternative music with Nevermind, making songs that fans could sing along to as well as appreciate on a deeper level.
When talking about the grunge movement later, Smith would consider Nirvana one of the most powerful musical forces she had seen since the golden age of rock and roll, telling Rolling Stone, “When Nirvana came out, I was really excited. Not so much for myself–my time had passed for putting so much passion into music and pinning my faith on a band. I’d had The Rolling Stones. I was happy for the kids to have Nirvana. I didn’t know anything about his torments and personal life. I saw the work and the energy, and I was excited by that”.
Even though Cobain was heralded as the king of the next generation of rockstars, it wasn’t a mantle he could sustain for much longer, eventually dying by his own hand in 1994. After mourning the loss of a rock icon, Smith would ultimately pay tribute to Cobain’s memory, penning the song ‘About A Boy’ to memorialise the fallen icon of rock.
