Customer Reviews

Gung Ho

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love Patti Smith. Her four pre-marriage and retirement albums are mainstays of my listening. I liked parts of all of the "return" albums, but each liked the anthemic qualities of the songs on the early ones. No problem with that on Gung Ho, however. The guitar work is equal to those 70s albums and Patti's singing has never been better, expressive and powerful. Some of the songs are weak, and the two lengthy rants can get on your nerves. This time, however, the music carries the songs that drag and the first seven cuts don't have a weak moment. Rolling Stone thought it was one of the best albums of 2000, and, along with Shelby Lynne, the Mekons, and Yo La Tengo's new releases it seems that Gung Ho predicts a good music year in 2000.

An early "Horses" lover and "Easter" fan, I have always been more drawn to the Patti Smith Group for the music than thematic content. This album, more so than any others since, and certainly in contrast with "Dream of Life," returns to the more aggressive musicality of those first recordings. This is an album to be turned up loud and enjoyed for its visceral qualities, in addition to Patti's poetic creativity. Particular highlights are "One Voice," with an original combination of Patti finding religion and Jay Dee Dougherty coming to the fore as percussionist and musician. He is a big part of what makes this album fun. "Glitter in Their Eyes" rocks and would stand out on a "Best of Blue Oyster Cult" album - with Patti lashing out at commercialism and guest Tom Verlaine contributing cooking lead guitar lines. These two songs represent the group's best shots in a decade at the alternative charts, and are much more original than "Because the Night." "Persuasion" comes close behind, with Patti sampling a different vocal style. "China Bird" is appealing in its simplicity. "Lo and Beholden" is a classic Lenny Kaye collaboration, very appealing but somehow derivative of earlier work. Kaye's creativity on this CD seems faded in comparison to earlier works -- maybe I am overlooking his contributions. "Boy Cried Wolf" needs a melody, although it is likeable nonetheless, and "Gone Pie" is similarly listenable but too formulaic to be first tier. "Upright Come" and "New Party" are hard rocks lacking musicality; they merit sampling and then fast-forwarding. "Strange Messenger," "Grateful," and "Gung Ho" are classic artistic Patti Smith -- heartfelt, exploratory, definantly non-commercial, but lesser musically than the others. "Libbie's Song" is a tribute to Old-Time folk. The faithful will find these compelling.

I can't believe I saw a 2 star review here for this album. It's immensely wise in lyrics, and while more polished than previous albums, it's a diverse collection that doesn't just rely on hooks. When the hooks are there, as on the songs "One Voice," "Pursuasion" and "Glitter in Your Eyes," they definitely stick with you. But she also puts in the chugging along "Boy Cried Wolf," the beautiful bluegrass type song "Libbie's Song," and even some funk with "New Party." There's also the great rock and roll of "Gone Pie," with the memorable joyous-sounding chorus. Although "Gung Ho," and "Strange Messengers" are long songs, Patti's voice sings them with such conviction that they won't grow tired.

Unlike the phony marketers criticized in "Glitter in their Eyes," this recording is the real deal. Unlike the many women in music who are left on the marketing heap once they reach a certain age, Patti Smith continues to amaze, to be relevant.

The music here is strong and polished throughout. The number of great songs is phenomenal. The one that many won't take a liking to is the title song, the last song, but it, too, has a powerful message.

"Gung Ho" and "Libbie's Song" seems to be (or so I imagine) about the loss of her brother in Vietnam. How appropriate and personal they are as we speak these days of war.

In early 1982 while briefly residing in Los Angeles, I first heard U2's "Rejoice" and "Gloria" (from the band's "October" LP) exuding from the airwaves of KROQ, Southern California's seminal alternative rock station. The stunning musicality and shimmering harmonies of the then-little-known Irish band caused time to stand still, goosebumps to appear up and down my spine and the earth to tremble on its own axis. For many years, I longed for another album to elicit the same joyous transcendence.

Nearly two decades later, that CD has arrived.

Patti Smith has released "Gung Ho" - a stellar, propulsive, intelligent work that lingers within the listener's memory long after the last track (the stirring title tune - an eleven-minute opus that concurrently addresses human strength, injustice and freedom from tyranny) betrays its last note. Emerging from wrenching grief and loss (the deaths of her husband and brother) and singing better than ever, Smith has created an epic CD of staggering musicianship, trenchant commentaries and self-empowerment.

Anyone whose perceptions of Smith are relegated to the late Gilda Radner's "Candy Slice" persona on Saturday Night Live will be pleasantly surprised by this CD. The neo-punk poetess is back, and she's stronger than ever. Her inspiring performance on last winter's Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame Awards was a grateful distraction from Whitney's purported interventions and airport foibles - her rendition of "People Have The Power" was a dynamic reminder of what great rock 'n roll is all about.

All the tracks on "Gung Ho" are gems - from the poignancy of "Boy Cried Wolf" to the mesmerizing "Strange Messengers" to the evocative title track - there's no filler to be found. Smith has never set out to conquer the world and vanquish others in her path. In other words, you'll likely not see her on VH1's "Divas 2001" or similar bathos. Alone of most female rock superstars on today's landscape, Smith has the most heart. The most soul. The most courage. Long may she reign.

Gung Ho is without a doubt the single greatest album released by a female artist. Patti Smith has always been able to deliver her songs with deep feeling and emotion but only Horses and Easter get even close to the overall quality of this masterpeice. With incredible passion, well written songs and Patti Smith's wonderful deep meaning lyrics Gung Ho is an album you dont want to miss.

If anyone can plummet and uncover some sort of mystical leaning underlying the deadpan folksy side of dry bones American culture, it is Patti Smith. Gungho is an album that continues in the same vein of Patti that Gone Again started. It is the elegiac style of an underplayed, hopelessness of a nostalgia for a more energetic time. Gungho almost resembles a German torch singer not altogether there due to sad memories (husband Fred is dead) (unionism and the new Left have faded) but she is willing to sing nonetheless, without paying the price in honesty however metaphoric. This is all carried rather soulfully and beautifully. One thinks of Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice: what memories are haunting Patti as they did Sophie? Dirge-like tunes carry a primal native's dry desert death rattle. Honest and surreal. Mystical answers come from dredging around in sad dirty soil and not for the sky where space monkey flew. Her album Easter gave resurrection, Gungho does'nt dare offer hope, that spare elegance is the album's beauty... spectres of Leonard Cohen.

Patti Smith is a constant in my life. From Horses to Gung Ho, she continues to astound me. She is such a passionate artist and performer. I admire and adore her.

I think Gung Ho is essential. It's awesome. Patti's voice is powerful strong. The band is in excellent form and musically flawless. Each track rocks whether loud soaring anthems or quieter acoustic ballads. There is a compelling rhythm woven through the entire CD, beginning with the solid One Voice and ending in Gung Ho; an epic chant/rant which hypnotizes.

Patti Smith is the voice of our social conscience. It would be wise to listen closely.

"I hope I die before I get old." - The Who, "My Generation," 1965

Pete Townshend was just 20 years old when he penned that much-quoted (and, ultimately, none-too-prescient) sentiment; Patti Smith would have been 18 when she first heard it. Ten years later, Smith would make her own waves in the avant-garde underground with "Horses," a slurred, swaggering stash of junkie-punk poetry that would serve as an artistic touchstone for everyone from Chrissie Hynde to PJ Harvey; Jim Carroll to Jeff Buckley; early R.E.M. to latter-day Dylan. Coming across as a raw, mystically militaristic meld of Maria Callas and Iggy Pop, Smith's sometimes brooding, sometimes bellicose bellow-and-drone went a long way toward revolutionizing the role of women in rock. Indeed, one wonders if today's pale pretenders to Smith's definitively X-chromosomed throne (Alanis, Courtney, Fiona) fully understand and appreciate the instrumental impact she had in injecting the "grrrowl" into "riot grrrl."

Now, at the age of 53, the undisputed queen of piss-and-vinegar humanism is back with "Gung Ho," her third album in five years after a self-imposed decade-and-a-half sabbatical from the music biz. No doubt today's SoundScan-obsessed record execs are at no less of a loss than their Billboard-bankrolled forbears as to how to handle this scarecrow-skinny slip of a Siren, whether to celebrate or condemn her; demonize or deify. With her singular abilities to embody both poet and priestess; ambassador and anarchist; mother and lover, Patti Smith remains all but impervious to pigeon-holing in an industry that consistently values slick and shallow packaging over solid, creative content.

"Gung Ho" puts all of Smith's shape-shifting gifts on full-frontal-naked display, and ultimately proves that rare case where a calculated backward glance serves not as a surefire sign of creative decay, but as a catalyst for the most organic and reaffirming form of forward progress. The lightly oriental-spiced "Lo and Beholden"'s chorus melody revisits with a wink her 1978 Springsteen co-written hit "Because the Night," just as the exquisitely crystalline "China Bird" mimics 1996's even more melancholically evocative "My Madrigal." "Glitter in Their Eyes"' sizzling, glam-rock riff does little to disguise the tract's true mission, to open Generation Y's eyes to the soul-squandering consequences of institutionalized commercialism; while the grinding, Doors-styled title track gradually establishes itself as less a heavy-handed apologist homage to Ho Chi Minh than a heavy-hearted ode to a nation betrayed by the broken hopes and empty rhetoric of a dead revolution. Finally, on the medicine-man incantation "Libbie's Song," Smith channels General George Armstrong Custer's disgraced-yet-faithful-to-the-grave widow while simultaneously keeping a karmic candle lit for her own dear departed partner (husband and former MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, who died in 1994). From start to finish, Smith's traditional backing band (led by yin/yang-complementary guitarists Lenny Kaye and Oliver Ray) spin silky, minimalist backdrops against which Smith alternately salves and savages her psyche, as though possessed, Jackson Pollock-esque, to produce random patterns of beauty and truth out of nothing but her own blood and bone marrow.

Smith's not-infrequent Beats- and Symbolists-inspired soliloquies will no doubt alienate some listeners accustomed to the numbing verse-chorus-verse formulas that have been defining and limiting "popular" music since time immemorial. And the record's determinedly dense second half is certain to be dismissed in conservative circles as just so much namby-pamby liberal claptrap, rant, not rock; sermons instead of songs. But one need not be a believer in Buddha or an apostle of Baudelaire or Burroughs to appreciate "Gung Ho" for what it is, first and foremost: a ripping rock `n' roll record. That it also has a head and a heart; a conscience and a cause; well, that's all just gravy, baby.

Eat your heart out, Mr. Townshend. Keep bearing witness, Ms. Smith.

"Give me one more revolution/One more turn of the wheel." - Patti Smith, "Gung Ho," 2000

I've been a Patti fan for a very long time and must say Gung Ho just offers so much to my listening enjoyment. Her vocals are so smooth and powerful and emotion filled at times, it's chilling. I find 'Lo and Beholden' to have a fine melody and Patti's vocals are superb. 'China Bird' is a acoustic ballad to just float through its musical waves. 'Glitter in their Eyes' is a great catchy tune. The song, 'Strange Messengers' just leaves me speechless, I must say, it is an awesome song for 8 minutes and counting. Unbelievable indeed. I truly feel Patti and her band have come full circle with Gung Ho. There is so much depth between the lyrics and emotions being conveyed and the music just integrates it all so beautifully. This album deserves major recognition.