Cheap Easter (Music) (Patti Smith Group) Price

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Customer Reviews of Easter

A Rock and Roll Masterpiece
In early 1978, when this album was released, I ran a small record shop in Lancaster, Pa. I had been intrigued by "HORSES" and even more intrigued by its successor "RADIO ETHIOPIA", which contained some of the most provocative rock to come from the early American punk scene. I was not ready for the power and the glory of "EASTER", however, and its scope and depth took me completely by surprise. I listened to nothing else (well, okay, except for "DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN")at the store and at home, sometimes sitting in front of the stereo in a trance, totally overwhelmed by this record. From the opening cut "Til Victory" to the closing prayer "Easter" (I don't have the remastered version...hence I don't recognize "Godspeed" as the true final track), this record is mezmerizing, mystifying, and completely in tune with what The Patti Smith Group was aiming for...a declaration of musical independence. Though the entire album is electrifying, there are a few cuts that are just plain incredible, including "25th Floor/High On Rebellion", "Privilege" (Set Me Free), and of course, the single "Because The Night" and the title track. Expertly produced by Jimmy Iovine, this album will take you back to a time when rock this unadulterated was being performed by a group of New York bands that shaped music for years to come..Talking Heads, Television, The New York Dolls, and of course, The Patti Smith Group, to name a few. Buy this, take it home, wait until late at night, and then go for the ride it takes you on...I guarantee it will leave you breathless. Needless to say, this is one of my favorite records of my lifetime, and it provided the soundtrack for the greatest years I've known, when I swaggered just as righteously as this band and this album. It filled a place in my rock and roll heart that, to this day, it still occupies just as wholly. This is serious and thought-provoking music that, for this listener, has transcended time and space. I loved it then and I love it more now...it is indeed a classic and belongs in every serious rock and roll record collection.

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Don't any of you remember?
This album, released when I was a college freshman, colored my whole world at the time. That being said, the parts that still matter to me are "till victory" , ghost dance, because the night, and especially we three (!) and easter(!) two of the all time greatest tracks. Patti smith is a unique and valuable artist and seer, and we are all lucky to still have her perspective. Be- lieve it or not, she is UNDERrated, not over-. Long may she wave and rave (love, r)

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An album to discover and rediscover
Many years after her seminal late-seventies work, Patti Smith's debut, Horses, gets the lion's share of the accolades within her body of work. I'll probably get a lot of disagreement and maybe even a flame or two from that disc's staunch supporters, but in my opinion Easter is the pinnacle of her recording career. Horses is probably the more groundbreaking work, but to these ears it's a difficult listen and probably more trendy than it is good. Though given a more mainstream production, Easter is not one iota less tough or uncompromising.

Easter is stylistically a late-seventies hard rock album, but still it's all Patti, complete with her poetry and earthy sensuality. Her poetry is more mature sounding: There's only one ill-advised, childish diatribe here on "25th Floor", and the song appropriately enough soars so high you don't mind. Her vocals are less hysterical and more focused than ever before or since. She sings like a woman utterly possessed, and it's this element that gives Easter its power.

The Patti Smith Group shifts effortlessly from thundering anthems ("Till Victory", "Privilege") to stately ballads ("Easter") to quirky art-rock ("Space Monkey"). Patti's definitive reading of Bruce Springsteen's "Because the Night" -- which cuts both Natalie Merchant's soulless version and surprisingly the author's more gritty rendition -- is here too. Happily, it is neither the best thing about Easter, its weakest link, nor its centerpiece as it simply fits comfortably within the CD's mosaic.

Granted, if you're the type who exists on an audio diet of the Velvets, Talking Heads, and Tom Waits and who thinks that REM sold out after Chronic Town, do the rest of us a favor and pass on this. However if you enjoy female rockers like Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Kate Bush, and Tori Amos -- or just love moody hard rock -- buy this. You're in for a real experience.

And surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever...god damn.