Unpredictable art-punk poet priestess Patti Smith has always had the ability to surprise over the decades and this album of covers is no different. Smith's gift has always been her lyricism and here her interpretative ability ranges from superb to downright awful. While I can understand her political reasoning for covering the Tears For Fears hit Everybody Wants to Rule The World, it makes my ears burn.
However, on the plus side she cleverly strips down Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced, injects her bluesy witches' brew to The Stones' Gimme Shelter while, along with Flea and Tom Verlaine, the salute to Grace Slick on White Rabbit would have even Jefferson Airplane wondering what they had just smoked. "I sensed Kurt Cobain's love of Leadbelly and Roscoe Holcomb ..
. and felt the source of his anguish, the blessing and burden of being an artist", Smith writes on the liner notes. Indeed.