Album · The Patti Smith Group
Wave by The Patti Smith Group
Wave is an album by The Patti Smith Group, released in 1979. 1 song from it has charted on rock radio countdowns, with 31 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Dancing Barefoot”, on 31 lists with a best position of #17.
Wave, released by Arista on May 17, 1979, was Patti Smith's fourth studio album and the last to carry the Patti Smith Group name. Todd Rundgren produced, and he kept the band moving down the road they were already on, toward a cleaner, radio-ready pop rock sound a long way from the raw poetry-and-punk charge of Horses four years earlier.
Smith still fuses rock and verse, but the edges are sanded here, and the payoff was a pair of songs that got onto commercial radio: "Frederick" and the swaying, incantatory "Dancing Barefoot". Critics were divided, and it didn't match the success of Easter the year before. Then the group broke up, and Smith didn't come back with a solo record until Dream of Life, nine years later in 1988.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Wave on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dancing Barefoot | 31 | #17 | – | 1989–2026 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.