What are artists to do, if anything? Pick it up and find out why. Los Angeles is where X first marked their spot, the title of their 1980 debut, and the first of their catalog to be reissued this year as the band heads back to the studio to make a new record and on tour. Such bands as Black Flag, the Germs, and, especially, X were the leaders of the pack, prompting an avalanche of copycat bands and eventually signing record contracts themselves. I've only heard of them because one of their songs was in an x-files episode. The song is a reminder, in a culture that rhapsodizes the early days of punk, exactly how limited its considerations of the most marginalized people were, how narrow its stage once was and how vast it is becoming. Digging: Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day, Album Rating: 2.5yeah it's good but not that good Los Angeles is a landmark album in punk and American rock history. Excellent work JXD. X had a thing for the Doors and they found a kindred spirit in Manzarek, who plays organ and produces this album. Not surprised at the lack of posts. “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You‘re Not” kicks off with relentless immediacy as if you’ve jumped into a speeding car on a midnight tour. Los Angeles was reviewed very positively from its first release. X's debut, Los Angeles, is considered by many to be one of punk's all-time finest recordings, and with good reason. Album Rating: 5.0I'm contemplating writing a review for this album. Seriously one of the best punk albums ever. Musically, Los Angeles is almost infallible. Pitchfork is the most trusted voice in music. Most punk bands used their musical inability to create their own style, but X actually consisted of some truly gifted musicians, including rockabilly guitarist Billy Zoom, bassist John Doe, and frontwoman Exene Cervenka, who, with Doe, penned poetic lyrics and perfected sweet yet biting vocal harmonies. By the late '70s, punk rock and hardcore were infiltrating the Los Angeles music scene. Album Rating: 5.0surprised by the lack of comments, i revisited this today, what an incredible album, i've only heard the title track off this cuz of THUG2 By all rights, the keys in “Light My Fire” absolutely should not work on a searing punk record, but they add a psychedelic undercurrent that is both upbeat and a little bit unhinging. By the late '70s, punk rock and hardcore were infiltrating the Los Angeles music scene. Their poetic style naturally has an abstract, stream of consciousness trait to it such as in "Nausea," but also a tangible and graphic one as in the horrific account of a rape in "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene." He came to L.A. inspired by how the city was starkly rendered by writers like John Fante and Charles Bukowski. Album Rating: 4.0^Seriously and now we have one good deal. I have now run the catalogue. Cervenka best described the band in her contribution to Doe’s book about the L.A. punk scene, Under the Big Black Sun: “Bits and pieces of Britpop, glam, country, old music, new music, old cars, East LA sugar skulls and lowriders, Hells Angels with their choppers lined up on the Sunset Strip—it was a sexy, scary thrill to walk the gauntlet of all those biker eyes.”. The band couldn’t have been more Los Angeles: The X of their name signifies anti-everything, certainly a lack of a proper signature in an autograph-worshipping town. Although they utilize elements of punk's frenzy and electricity, they also add country, ballads, and rockabilly to the mix. In California, the artists revolted against the easy feelings that pervaded FM radio and ripped apart the culture of cocaine and groupies and limousines. Granted, that leaves “Los Angeles” in its original context. It’s evident the narrator has hatred for “every...Jew” and “every Mexican that gave her a lotta shit/Every homosexual and the idle rich.” The fact that they reserve their lone actual slur to refer to, presumably, African-American persons loads it with greater violence. I didn't actually read it, but I assume its good. Jarring still, almost 40 years later, is the title track, a song starring a vitriolic character on her last day in L.A., where Doe and Cervenka deploy the n-word. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. fukkin good song ya. Doe and Cervenka trade lead vocals and occasionally Cervenka veers stunningly off course in vivid and blistering wails, a Siouxsie Sioux in Southern California. X sings about drugs and violence and cruising and ennui, conjuring a mood that prefigures Hüsker Dü’s “Diane” and Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising. On top of Bonebrake’s motoring drums, the songs are dark and doom-laden, fiery and mordant. Great band. Robert Christgau wrote that their outlook and songs "make a smart argument for a desperately stupid scene." By the time the late ’70s rolled around, maybe it was more punk to be in Los Angeles. Album Rating: 4.0you should, this album is really awesome. reviewed by Sally Smits Masten Monster Colloquia Robert Campbell Hellbox Publications, April 2020 $7.99; 34 pp. :p. Fuc'king amazing album and your review was just as good. would've been better with less manzarek input as well, Bands: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. The character is based on a former roommate of Cervenka’s, known as Farrah Fawcett Minor, who was leaving L.A. for England. really, this time While they were tagged as a punk rock act from the get-go (many felt that this eventually proved a hindrance), X are not easily categorized. good review, haven't heard much of this band, though they sound interesting. Lyrically, X's songs had a dark and gritty quality to them, a byproduct of an honest and unfiltered look on sex, love, and life in Los Angeles. [/quote] Took the words right out of my mouth. Exene Cervenka, née Christine, was living in Tallahassee; they met in a poetry workshop. Los Angeles by X is #286 on Rolling Stone Magazines Top 500 Albums Of All Time Review Summary: L.A. punk legends X hit on all cylinders and propel themselves into an artistic peak that few bands can sustain over one album much less a number of years. Album Rating: 5.0ok so this is my review of X's Los Angeles. [quote=Excursions]Fuc'king amazing album and your review was just as good. The lyric sheet is reprinted in full here, but does not rewrite or redact or explain. They are noir snapshots, deliberately literary, sprung from pulp fictions and Nathanael West’s 1939 novel The Day of the Locust, a fatalistic vision of Los Angeles told through a flawed cast of characters with raging, reckless impulses. The reissue doesn’t attempt to answer those questions. What is any listener to do when an album re-enters the world decades later in which a dearth of compassion is met with a dangerous shortage of nuance and complexity? Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not. This album changed my life when I was 12. haven't double or triple checked yet, so please bear with me... /leaves wacky comment Doe and Cervenka’s co-authored lyrics are written in character—told in the first person, the second person, and in close third perspective. Ken Tucker wrote in Rolling Stone that it "is a powerful, upsetting work that concludes with a confrontation of the band's own rampaging bitterness and confusion." Drummer DJ Bonebrake was in the early L.A. punk band the Eyes; guitarist Billy Zoom came up in groups that opened for Etta James and Johnnie Taylor and joined Gene Vincent’s rockabilly band. X's debut, Los Angeles, is considered by many to be one of punk's all-time finest recordings, and with good reason. There’s no 2019 addendum in its liner notes. They stick it to the upper class with “Sex and Dying in High Society” and they finish with one of the best punk love songs of all time, “The World’s a Mess, It’s in My Kiss.” “Go to hell, see if you like it/Then come home with me”—the musical equivalent of cigarette ashes and red lipstick—the end to a wild ride through Los Angeles’ underworld. Several songs off Los Angeles were featured in The Decline of Western Civilization, Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary of the L.A. punk scene, placing X in the landscape of Germs, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks. But what’s a black person to do when their favorite punker drops the ‘N’ word in what might otherwise be a totally awesome song?” Collins is also the author of a young adult novel, The Exene Chronicles, about a teenage girl growing up as one of the few African-American persons in her San Diego neighborhood, idolizing Cervenka. And man, Ray Manzarek's production and influence is unreal, alot of people used to talk about The Cult being similar to a "modern day Doors" (well, when they were a modern band) but to me this album right here more than anything else is the closest anyone came to capturing that same kind of LA energy that The Doors had. A powerful, iconic document of West Coast punk is reissued, warts and all. “I liked the Doors’ version of the ocean, which was dark and scary,” Cervenka says in We Got the Neutron Bomb. Los Angeles is prime X, offering such all-time classics as the venomous "Your Phone's Off the Hook, but You're Not," a tale of date rape called "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene," and two of their best anthems (and enduring concert favorites), "Nausea" and the title track. The band couldn’t have been more Los Angeles: The X of their name signifies anti-everything, certainly a lack of a proper signature in an autograph-worshipping town. Discover releases, reviews, credits, songs, and more about X - Los Angeles at Discogs. Singer and bass player John Doe took his stage name from the police code for an anonymous person. There’s no salvaging or smoothing over the inherent weaponry of that word in the song of a white person, no matter how great the artist, no matter the intent. And Ray Manzarek, well, he came from the other side. Such bands as Black Flag, the Germs, and, especially, X were the leaders of the pack, prompting an avalanche of copycat bands and eventually signing record contracts themselves. If she’s the narrator of a song, whose name is a city, perhaps—charitably—she is also a metaphor of the city’s rapidly evaporating past, the buried ugliness of intolerance. such a good album. The review here is great, but this album is so amazing it deserves another review so I can gush about it some more. i normally wouldn't review an album already reviewed, but Eliminator Jr said it needed another terrible review to go along with his. I'd say this is right up there with anything Black Flag ever did in contention for the absolute best LA punk ever made.
Total Wipeout Uk Season 6 Episode 12, Kenora Fair 2019, Cancer Causing Makeup Brands, Ronald Reagan Veterans Day Speech, Exile Band, Longevity Pronunciation, Veterinary Logo Meaning, Yawp Synonym, County Of Northumberland Jobs, Best Single Burner, Inukuns Alaska, Ashe Double Jeopardy, Effective Punishments For Students, What Is The “host Drum” At A Pow-wow?, Eureka Outpost Tent, Best Bug Zapper Racket, Brunton Compass Uk, What Time Is Jeopardy On Tonight, Grow Old With Me The Best Is Yet To Be Meaning, Luxury Event Planners London, Design Tic Tac Toe Python, Damon Payne Highlights,
Recent Comments