Outside Society: Looking Back 1975-2007 [Digipak]

Performer: Patti Smith
Producer: Tony Shanahan (Compilation)...
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Photographer: Lynn Goldsmith. Outside Society is a career-spanning, 18-track, single-disc overview of Patti Smith's recorded career for both Arista and Columbia Records. It includes tracks from 11 albums, including the radio edits of "Lo and Beholden" and her version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It also contains her defining hit, "Because the Night," (co-written with Bruce Springsteen) as well as other notable cuts, including "Dancing Barefoot," her signature readings of Van Morrison's "Gloria," and the Byrds' "So You Wanna Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star," and "People Have the Power."

Rolling Stone (p.70) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The mortality meditation 'Beneath the Southern Cross' and the ragged string-band cover of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' stand with her greatest moments." Record Collector (magazine) (p.102) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[This is the] ultimate consolidation of her unquenchable spirit and uniquely idiosyncratic talent." Uncut (magazine) (p.100) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Her music retains its strangeness, still crackles with life and possibility..."

One of the earliest and most important influences on punk rock (not to mention on post-punk songwriters like PJ Harvey), Patti Smith mated French Symbolist poetry with rock & roll, creating a musical style to match. In the process, she further shattered rock's gender barrier. Her 1975 album, HORSES, is one of the most seminal, acclaimed rock records of all time. Ironically, her biggest hit came with a 1978 version of Bruce Springsteen's "Because the Night." Smith spent much of the '80s and '90s away from the music business, but re-entered the fray in earnest starting with 1996's lauded GONE AGAIN.

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