Easter is the third studio album by the Patti Smith Group, released in March 1978 by Arista Records. It was produced by Jimmy Iovine and is considered the group’s commercial breakthrough, due to the huge success of the single, “Because The Night”, co-written by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 in the United Kingdom.

It is the first album released by Smith since suffering a neck injury while touring for her previous album Radio Ethiopia, which is considered the group’s best-selling album.
In contrast with the Patti Smith Group’s two previous albums, Horses and Radio Ethiopia, Easter incorporates a variety of musical styles, including the rock and roll classics “25th Floor/High On Rebellion” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger”), the folky “Ghost Dance”, the narrative “Babelogue” and the pop-rock “Because The Night”. Easter is the only Smith album of the 1970s not to feature Richard Sohl as a member of the group. In an interview at the time, Smith stated that Sohl was ill and this prevented him from participating in the recording of the album. With keyboardist Bruce Brody now on board, Richard Sohl makes a guest appearance on keyboards on “Space Monkey”, along with Blue Oyster Cult keyboardist Allen Lanier. The cover photo is by Lynn Goldsmith and the album liner notes by Cindy Black and Robert Mapplethorpe.

In addition to the religious allusions of its title, the album is filled with biblical and specifically Christian imagery. The track “Privilege (Set Me Free)” is taken from the famous British satirical film about authoritarianism, Privilege, with lyrics adapted from Psalm 23 of the Bible. The LP’s liner notes reproduce a portrait of First Holy Communion by the poet brothers Frederic and Arthur Rimbaud. Smith herself, in her liner notes for the song “Easter”, invokes the Catholic imagery of baptism, Holy Communion, and the blood of Christ.

Easter was widely accepted by the public upon its release. Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, called the album “complete and transcendent”. Also in Creem magazine, Nick Tosches described it as “an album of Christian obsessions, especially those of death and resurrection”, and called it “Smith’s finest work”. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote that “the miracle is that most of these songs are told in the way they were actually written”.

Easter ranked number 14 in The Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop review, in a poll of the best albums of 1978, while New Musical Express magazine ranked the album as the 46th best of the year.

From this excellent album I select, what else, “Because The Night”.

Tracklist

1. Till Victory 2:45
2. Space Monkey 4:04
3. Because The Night 3:32
4. Ghost Dance 4:40
5. Babelogue 1:25
6. Rock N Roll Nigger 3:13
7. Privilege (Set Me Free) 3:27
8. We Three 4:19
9. 25th Floor 4:01
10. High On Rebellion 2:20
11. Easter 5:58