Patti Smith -- Easter

  Punk poet extraordinaire Patti Smith!  Her usual brilliance is, in my opinion, not present on this record.  Other than hugely offensive, Rock N Roll Ni**er, the album just sounds like sloppy Classic Rock ... it's not that I'm too offended by their use of the dreaded N word, I get the poetic shock Warholian outrageousness, but do they have to scream it over and over and over, it kinda looses it's power and becomes shock for shocks sake, and why does it sound so separate from the rest of the album ... the tune is a wickedly sharp punk number, reminiscent of the MC5, while the rest of the record is a Springsteened biblical diatribe, who co-wrote Because The Night, and rejected it for his own record ... yikes ... is that the caliber of songs we have here ... rejects?  I wish I had found Horses instead, this review would have been totally different, the hit song is good but the album is a miss ...