Released
in October of 1976, Patti Smith Group’s sophomore studio album, Radio
Ethiopia, is celebrating its 45th anniversary this month. Caught on the
horns of the dilemma of the desire for commercial success vs the drive
for raw creative expression, the album landed with a thud, critically,
upon its release.
At the time of Smith’s emergence from the NYC
CBGB’s scene, the idea of “punk” was nowhere near codified into the
cultural cliche it would become within the next couple of years. As
such, what was happening in this community and why was still being
grappled with. PSG had come out of the gate with a strong debut in
Horses the year before, but it had no momentum from the music scene to
drive it and Smith was looking for some commercial validation at the
time of working on her second album. To this end, she enlisted the help
of producer, Jack Douglas, to help give the group some polish and
professionalism. They’d been developing their abilities as musicians,
but this can be a double-edged sword for artists working on the fringes
of an emerging scene. The raw energies of their debut became muted by
refined production values and restrained performances. The wild abandon
of their premier was softened and clarified and that clarity can
sometimes sap the energy out of an artist.
Then there’s the
contradiction of putting something like the album’s polarizing title
track in the midst of all these efforts at commercialization. It starts
off innocent enough, but eventually works into a dizzying vortex of of
noise and chaos that many considered too contrived an attempt to annoy.
The song’s live presentation during their shows of the time was often
considered the “downer” portion of the show. Whether it’s pretense or
sincerity is a bit cloudy, but it does raise questions if not eyebrows.
Though the group took some pretty hard knocks for the album
when it came out, opinions have softened towards it over time. I find
it has some moments worth hearing on it, though it’s probably never
gonna be my favorite album by Patti & the gang. It certainly didn’t
deserve the pounding it got back then, but those where the days when
rock critics made their name by seeing who could be the bigger asshole.
Sometimes it was amusing, but they shit on a lot of good stuff while
trying to be “cool” back then.
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