It's A Banga!

Patti Smith gearing up for new album release...and Islands makes a return to my speakers

I first came across Patti Smith when I was a young, angsty high school kid, and was watching Natural Born Killers, and heard "Rock N' Roll Nigger" for the first time. That song just had a resonance, not because of the racial slur, (which has no racial context when looking at the theme of the song) but because it was so ballsy. I researched Smith, and as the years have gone by, I've become a major fan, but mostly of her earlier work from the seventies, with the albums Horses, Easter, and Wave. Not to say that this is her best work, as I cannot judge that in reference to the fact that I've not heard a lot of her recent work, except for the cover she did of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for her album, Twelve in 2007.

BUT...Smith has announced that she will be releasing a new album, titled Banga, and it's scheduled to be released on June 4th. I'm pretty excited about this record, among many others that are coming out this year, if I haven't already made that clear with my past few blog entries. But, aside from this, I really don't have much to report on. You can view her video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" below:



LISTENING: For the past couple of nights, I've been listening to A Sleep & A Forgetting by Islands before going to bed. The first track, "In A Dream It Seemed Real," immediately grabs you. I've already blogged about this album, so I won't spend too much time on it, just know that it's a great record. Aside from that, I've been indulging in more top-40 action at work, which includes Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" playing EVERYWHERE, and it's getting to be too much. I think I blogged about that song somewhere around 7-8 months ago, and it's getting huge hype now, and not saying it's a bad song, it's a great song...it's just getting some massive overplay. Oh well...that's how shit is.

That's all. PEACE.