Patti Smith Releases First Album in Eight Years June 5
Patti Smith has announced that she will soon release her first album in eight years.
The legendary singer-songwriter will release Banga on June 5, and the record will be her first studio album since 2004’s trampin’. The first single from the new album is called “April Fool,” and was appropriately released on April 1.
A statement released about the album goes into detail about some of the songs on the album, including one written for Amy Winehouse and another for Johnny Depp.
“There is an exploratory spirit in the songs that make up Banga, including a melodic overture imagining the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci to the New World in 1497 (‘Amerigo’), a rock song for the people of Japan in the wake of last year’s earthquake (‘Fuji-san’), a classic ballad in memory of Amy Winehouse “’This Is the Girl’), an improvised meditation on art and nature (‘Constantine’s Dream’) as well as a birthday song written for her friend Johnny Depp (‘Nine’).”
According to Rolling Stone, the album features regular Smith collaborators like Tony Shanahan, Jay Dee Daugherty and Lenny Kaye. Additionally, special guests include Tom Verlaine, Jack Petruzzelli and Smith’s children Jackson and Jesse Paris.
Though it has been quite a while since Smith released a studio album, she has not remained out of the spotlight. In 2010, she released a memoir called “Just Kids” that would go on to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction. The book, which was released to widespread critical acclaim, focuses on Smith’s relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.
Smith became involved with the New York punk scene after the release of her debut album, 1975’s Horses. That album remains on many critic’s lists of the greatest albums of all time. One of her most widely known songs, “Because the Night,” was not included on Horses. The song was originally written by Bruce Springsteen and was considered for inclusion on his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town. Instead, he have the song to Smith who added additional elements to the song and released it in 1978.
