Patti Smith

A true icon of rock and roll and counter-culture, punk poet laureate and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith is known for fusing rock and poetry in her work.

In 2025, she marks the historic 50 year celebration of one of the most influential musical documents of all time, her 1975 debut album, Horses.

It has come to be regarded as a seminal and landmark recording that continues to have resonance and relevance for succeeding generations of musicians and artists. Horses clarion call was: “three chord rock merged with the power of the word.”

It was released on November 10, the death date of one of Patti’s most important influences, the poet Arthur Rimbaud, and was a return to rock’s primal instincts, seeking to awaken the spirit and promise of the music at a time when it seemed as if this sensibility was at risk of being forgotten.

The album’s artistic reach took shape in the free-form flights of “Birdland” and “Land,” where the expansive soundscapes of free jazz and propulsive rhythms and incantatory lyrics intermingled to provide an expansive sonic landscape.

Infused with poetry, Horses is an uncompromising exploration that helped lay the groundwork for what would become known as the upheaval of “punk,” though Smith and her band always attempted to avoid categorisation.

Three years later she would go on to record her most widely known song, "Because the Night," co-written with Bruce Springsteen, her only UK Top 10 hit.