Easter (Patti Smith Group album)

Easter is the third studio album by American musician Patti Smith, and the second release where her backing band Patti Smith Group is billed. It was released in March 1978 by Arista Records. Produced by Jimmy Iovine, the album is regarded as the group's commercial breakthrough, owing to the success of the rock single "Because the Night" (co-written by Bruce Springsteen and Smith), which reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number five on the UK Singles Chart.
The first album released since Smith had suffered a neck injury while touring for Radio Ethiopia, Easter has been called the most commercially accessible of the Patti Smith Group's catalogue. Unlike its two predecessors, Easter incorporated a diversity of musical styles, including straightforward rock ("Because the Night"), classic rock and roll ("25th Floor/High on Rebellion", "Rock N Roll Nigger"), folk ("Ghost Dance") and spoken word ("Babelogue"). Easter is the only 1970s album of Smith's that does not feature Richard Sohl as part of the Patti Smith Group; in one interview at the time, Smith stated that Sohl was sick and this prevented him from participating in recording the album. Bruce Brody is credited as the keyboard player, though Sohl makes a guest appearance contributing keyboards to "Space Monkey", along with Blue Öyster Cult keyboardist Allen Lanier. The cover photograph is by Lynn Goldsmith and the liner notes photography by Cindy Black and Robert Mapplethorpe.
In addition to the religious allusion of its title, the album is replete with biblical and specifically Christian imagery. "Privilege (Set Me Free)" is taken from the British fame- and authoritarianism-satirizing film Privilege; its lyrics are adapted from Psalm 23. The LP insert reproduces a First Communion portrait of Frederic and Arthur Rimbaud, and Smith's notes for the song "Easter" invoke Catholic imagery of baptism, communion and the blood of Christ. A solitary hand-drawn cross is placed below the group member credits on the sleeve insert, and the last sentence of the liner notes is a quote from Second Epistle to Timothy 4:7 -- "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course ..."
Beyond Christian themes, the song "Ghost Dance" references the Ghost Dance Native American religious revival of the late 19th century.
Easter was highly acclaimed upon its release. Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh called it "transcendent and fulfilled", while Sandy Robertson proclaimed that "the rock 'n' roll resurrection is upon us" in his review of the album for Sounds. In Creem, Nick Tosches deemed Easter to be Smith's best work, "truer and surer and less uneven than her previous albums". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice felt that the music "is as basic as ever in its instrumentation and rhythmic thrust, but grander, more martial", and that "most of these songs are rousing in the way they're meant to be." Lester Bangs, however, began his review of the album in Phonograph Record, "Dear Patti, start the revolution without me", and contended that while Horses had changed his life, Easter "is just a very good album". The Globe and Mail called the album "as terse and sculpted a rock 'n' roll statement as the band had made to that point." Easter placed at number 14 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll of the best albums of 1978, while NME ranked it the 46th best album of the year.
Patti Smith Group
Additional personnel
Technical
Design
In the insert with the original LP release (reproduced in the 1996 reissue), Smith's self-penned liner notes refer, among other things, to: