Los Angeles (X album)

Los Angeles is the debut studio album by American rock band X, released on April 26, 1980 by Slash Records. It was produced by ex-Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and includes a cover of the 1967 Doors song "Soul Kitchen".

Los Angeles
Studio album by X
Released	April 26, 1980
Recorded	January 1980
Studio	Golden Sound Studios, Hollywood, CA
Genre	Punk rock
Length	28:05
Label	Slash
Producer	Ray Manzarek
X chronology
Los Angeles (1980) Wild Gift (1981)

Wild Gift placed at No. 16 in The Village Voice's 1980 Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[1] In 2003, the album was ranked No. 286 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[2]

In 1988, Slash issued Los Angeles and Wild Gift jointly on a single CD. It was reissued by Rhino Records in 2001 with five bonus tracks.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Christgau's Record Guide	A−[4]
Entertainment Weekly	A[5]
Pitchfork	8.5/10[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[7]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[8]
Uncut	[9]

Los Angeles was reviewed very positively from its first release. 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."[10] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote that their outlook and songs "make a smart argument for a desperately stupid scene."[4] AllMusic's retrospective review concluded that the album "is considered by many to be one of punk's all-time finest recordings, and with good reason."[3]

For the year of its release, Wild Gift placed at No. 16 on the Christgau-organized Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[1] Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn named it one of the ten best albums released between 1977 and 1987.[11] Subsequently, Wild Gift was ranked No. 24 on Rolling Stone's 1989 list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s,[12] and Pitchfork ranked it 91st on its 2002 list of the decade's top 100 albums.[13] The former also ranked it No. 286 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2003,[2] and No. 287 in a 2012 revised list.[14] In 2012, Slant Magazine placed Wild Gift at No. 98 on its list of the 100 best albums of the 1980s.[15] The title track was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".[16]

In pop culture

• The album's title track featured in the series finale of The Shield and has made numerous video game appearances including the soundtrack to Tony Hawk's Underground 2, as downloadable content in Rock Band and as a cover version in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s. However, the use of the words "nigger" and "shit" were censored while the Guitar Hero version used the second verse as the first and second verse. The uncensored version of the song appeared in the next gen versions of Grand Theft Auto V.
• Los Angeles is mentioned at the very end of Bret Easton Ellis's debut novel Less Than Zero.
• "Nausea" was performed in the 1981 rockumentary The Decline of Western Civilization, and later in 2008 in the Germs biopic film What We Do Is Secret.
• In 1994 The X-Files episode "3", "The Unheard Music" was heard in the background during the Club Tepes scene.

Track listing

All tracks are written by John Doe and Exene Cervenka except where noted.

Side A

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not"		2:25
2.	"Johny Hit and Run Paulene"		2:50
3.	"Soul Kitchen"	John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison	2:25
4.	"Nausea"		3:40
5.	"Sugarlight"		2:28

Side B

No.	Title	Length
6.	"Los Angeles"	2:25
7.	"Sex and Dying in High Society"	2:15
8.	"The Unheard Music"	4:49
9.	"The World's a Mess; It's in My Kiss"	4:43

Bonus tracks (2001 CD reissue)

10. "I'm Coming Over (Demo Version)" – 1:24
11. "Adult Books (Dangerhouse Rough Mix Version)" – 3:21
12. "Delta 88 (Demo Version) – 1:28
13. "Cyrano de Berger's Back (Rehearsal) – 3:01
14. "Los Angeles (Dangerhouse Version) – 2:14

Personnel

X

• John Doe – bass, lead vocals
• Exene – vocals
• Billy Zoom – guitar
• D.J. Bonebrake – drums

Additional personnel

• Ray Manzarek – organ on "Nausea", "The Unheard Music", and "The World's a Mess; It's in My Kiss"; synthesizer on "Sex and Dying in High Society"; production

References

1. "The 1980 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll". The Village Voice. February 9, 1981. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
2. Levy, Joe (2006) [2005]. "Los Angeles – X". Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (3rd ed.). London: Turnaround. ISBN 1-932958-61-4. OCLC 70672814. Archived from the original on December 20, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
3. Prato, Greg. "Los Angeles – X". AllMusic. Retrieved September 11, 2005.
4. Christgau, Robert (1990). "X: Los Angeles". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X. Retrieved April 4, 2006.
5. Weingarten, Marc (September 28, 2001). "X: Los Angeles / Wild Gift / Under the Big Black Sun". Entertainment Weekly. p. 75.
6. Bengal, Rebecca (February 25, 2019). "X: Los Angeles". Pitchfork. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
7. Sisario, Ben (2004). "X". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 889–90. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
8. Sheffield, Rob (1995). "X". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 438–39. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
9. "X: Los Angeles". Uncut. No. 55. December 2001. p. 118.
10. Tucker, Ken (August 7, 1980). "X: Los Angeles". Rolling Stone. No. 323. Archived from the original on December 24, 2007. Retrieved May 12, 2006.
11. Hilburn, Robert (May 17, 1987). "10 Years Later: A Critic's List of the Best Albums of the Decade". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
12. Azerrad, Michael; DeCurtis, Anthony (November 16, 1989). "The 100 Best Albums of the Eighties". Rolling Stone. No. 565. p. 76. Retrieved February 21, 2007.
13. "The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. November 20, 2002. p. 1. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
14. "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. May 31, 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
15. "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s". Slant Magazine. March 5, 2012. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
16. "Experience The Music: One Hit Wonders and The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". rockhall.com. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. Archived from the original on April 8, 2011. Retrieved April 27, 2009.

External links

• 40th anniversary retrospective by Discogs.com