Los Angeles [EXPLICIT LYRICS] [EXTRA TRACKS] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

X

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 18, 2001)
• Original Release Date: September 18, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics, Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00005NTQ5
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,569 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #24 in	Music > Alternative Rock > American Alternative > American Punk
  #56 in	Music > Alternative Rock > Hardcore & Punk > Punk

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Steeped in poetry and class issues, X was the first L.A. punk band to fully incorporate a dark West Coast sensibility. Singer/lyricists/spouses John Doe and Exene Cervenka forged a stray-cat approach to vocal harmonies while spieling reports on crash-pad sex and drugs, casual hatred, and the occasional spotting of the "idle rich." Full-powered and intelligent, X's sound also spotlighted Billy Zoom, a pompadoured guitarist schooled by Gene Vincent, and flexible drummer D.J. Bonebrake. Los Angeles, the first of four productions by ex-Door Ray Manzarek, made an excellent case for the group, though its ambitions were to be quickly outstripped by the evolving personal takes of Doe and Cervenka. For the most part, the album is fast, hard, and fleet, like the motorcycles Zoom loved: "Your Phone's Off the Hook," "Johnny Hit and Run Pauline," the title track, and a Ramones-style cover of the Doors' "Soul Kitchen" are touchstones that reach beyond their era. Only "The Unheard Music," a turgid bit of suburbia-bashing, mars the original LP, which is augmented on this reissue by five bonus tracks that bring the running time close to 40 minutes. --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Los Angeles Is Still Burning, March 19, 2004

By	Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

X's debut album, Los Angeles, was released in 1980 and was produced by Ray Manzarek of The Doors. X emerged out of the burgeoning L.A. punk rock scene of the late 70's. Unlike most of their contemporaries who were more raw style than substance, X consisted of gifted musicians. They fused the raw power & frenzied emotion of punk with strands of rockabilly and country twang. The quartet of Exene Cervenka on vocals, John Doe on bass, Billy Zoom on guitar and DJ Bonebrake on drums were supplemented by Mr. Manzarek on keyboards. The nine songs are quick bursts of power and precision. The opening track's spurned lover fury of "The Phone's Off The Hook, But Your Not", the date rape victim of "Johnny Hit & Run Pauline", the feverish remake of The Doors' "Soul Kitchen", the banality of rich people's existence in "Sex & Dying In High Society" (which was used a theme in Bret Easton Ellis' book Less Than Zero) and the majesty of the title track, the album's finest moment. The reissue is augmented beautifully by five tracks. X was a band never destined for mainstream success, but nearly a quarter of a century later, this album as with much of their music, still sounds fresh and vital.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the most talented & versatile punk band arrives!, March 18, 2002

By	28-year old wallflower "Eric N Andrews" (West Lafayette, IN) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

While the punk rock movement may have virtually overhauled the British music industry, in America, it made a relatively small impact on its popular music. Except for maybe the Talking Heads, who later smoothed out its rough edges, the slicker offspring of punk called new wave was what the Americans seemed to find more palatable. As a result bands like California's X had to settle for a mostly regional following who appreciated influential music when they heard it. 1980's LOS ANGELES was when X first committed their frenzied live act into a studio setting.

Former Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek (also a California native) had some success post-Doors as a producer & was charged with helping X develop an identity in the studio. While as time went on, X would go for a much cleaner sound & approach, Manzarek pretty much let the band just play live on LOS ANGELES (with the occasional overdub like Ray Manzarek's organ). The result was an audio snapshot of the punk scene in California that showed so much potential to reach national acclaim, but that didn't happen but posthumously.

From the start, it was clear that X was probably the most talented & accomplished of the California punk bands & this is proven with the vocal harmonies between bassist John Doe & vocalist Exene Cervenka that no other punk band could claim. Songs like the sped-up cover of The Doors' "Soul Kitchen" (probably a tribute to their illustrious producer), "Sugarlight", "Sex & Dying In High Society", "The Unheard Music" & the epic closer "The World's A Mess; It's In My Kiss" show the prominent set-up of Exene (or Doe) singing solo with the other later chiming in on the chorus & occasionally on the verses. This turned out to be the folk influence coming to the fore & this was just one of many things X had on their fellow punk rockers.

But while those songs had a certain dark cuteness (but not cloyingly so) to them, the other songs on LOS ANGELES are considerably darker & more brutal in their sonic assault. "Your Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not" (how a break-up song should sound, angry & pummeling), "Johnny Hit & Run Paulene" (a frightening tale of date rape), "Nausea" & the title track leave the listener breathless with their deafening volume & run-for-your-life tempo. These songs also foreshadow the riot-grrl movement by about a decade with Exene's occasionally venomous delivery.

Thanks to the good people at Rhino Records, X's classic albums have been remastered to give them a modern polish, but not sacrifice their volume & even a few bonus tracks. LOS ANGELES' bonuses come from the late 1970s when X was just beginning to build a live reputation. Songs like "I'm Coming Over" & "Adult Books" appear in very rough early versions that would later be revisited for 1981's WILD GIFT album. "Delta 88" is a demo that wouldn't appear for the first time until their 1997 anthology BEYOND & BACK, while "Cyrano De Berger's Back" would first be recorded by obscure punkers The Flesh Eaters before X gave it a go on 1987's SEE HOW WE ARE. "Los Angeles" first appeared on an EP called YES L.A. in 1979 before it got the more "professional" airing it did on LOS ANGELES.

It's a shame that a band like X, who had so much drive to make it on a bigger level, would only have a cult following beyond their loyal California fan base. But albums like LOS ANGELES have since been getting their due as proof that America did have one foot in the punk explosion of the late 1970s-early 1980s, even if its impact was rather limited. Now that X has virtually been around for more than 25 years (they've been on an extended hiatus for years), they could best be called the longest-lasting punk band in history & an album like LOS ANGELES is probably the high-water mark in a career that only has a little to show for it, all of it magnificent.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sunny California this is not, October 4, 2001

By	Stanley Alderson (Columbia, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is quite possibly one of the darkest albums of all time. The Sex Pistols were just angry, The Clash championed the working class, but X took the punk sound and told stories of heroin, rape, and other abnormalities that took place in the L.A. underground. This is not the Los Angeles that the news media brought to the masses. The stories they told were not received from some second hand news source, they were first hand witnesses to man's inhumanity to man. "Los Angeles," "The World's a Mess, Its In my Kiss," "Sex and Dying in High Society," and "Johnny Hit and Run Pauline" are the stand out tracks. As with "Wild Gift" the remastered version stands taller when matched up to the previously released version. If you ever doubt that the world is a cruel place, listen to this. The picture you see with their words provides a description that is only a notch below an eyewitness account.