Patti Smith is like that cool hippie aunt — she just seems like she couldn’t be anyone but herself. And while she’s generally well-known and successful, she’s been able to hold onto a degree of mystique that her mainstream peers have not. She’s a musician, painter and writer, and in every instance she comes across as an authentic, multi-talented “punk” whose work is honest, reflective and intelligent.
The Music of Patti Smith
On the music side, while Patti Smith never topped the charts, her influence on the burgeoning punk rock scene was undeniable across both sides of the Atlantic. Her seminal album in 1975, Horses, hit #26 on Rolling Stone’s Greatest Album chart. The song she is most known for, Because the Night (interestingly written by Bruce Springsteen) reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1978. Smith’s style is unique, nonconformist and artistic. She was known for infusing the insights of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs into the rock mainstream.
The Punk Poet Laureate
As a writer, she has been fairly prolific and her memoir, Just Kids landed #1 on Paste’s Top Musician Autobiographies. The book was critically acclaimed and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Her other memoirs include M Train (2015 and Year of the Monkey (2019). Smith later published A Book of Days(2022), a wonderfully visual book featuring more than 365 images and reflections inspired by her popular Instagram account.
Patti Smith’s writing is a reflection of her life: poetic, honest and illustrative. It makes perfect sense, then, that she’d own the moniker, “Punk Poet Laureate.” There’s a natural rhythm to her words just as there is to her music.
Among other awards, in 2007 Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She is ranked 47th on Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time (2010). She’s a one-of-a-kind punk wordsmith who typified the 70s female artist and rocker.
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