X
The Best: Make The Music Go Bang!

"I can't understand why X didn't become the biggest rock'n'roll band in the world. They had everything: great songs and a perfect image".

This sincere comment by Peter Buck of R.E.M. summarizes in a few simple words the importance and dazzling impact X had on the U.S. music scene of the Eighties.

We are at the end of the Seventies when John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom, and D.J. Bonebrake start gaining recognition in the underground music circuits of Los Angeles with a formula where the ferocity of punk happily blends with more typical rock'n'roll roots. The main distinctive elements of this group are from the outset the splendid voices of Doe and Exene, which alternate and merge into suggestive and passionate architectures, the distinctly rockabilly guitar of Billy Zoom, a skilled musician with important past collaborations with Etta James and Gene Vincent, and the powerful rhythm of Bonebrake, a real octopus behind the drums.

The first albums, "Los Angeles" and "Wild Gift", released between 1980 and 1981 and produced by Ray Manzarek, who offers the band his doorsian touches on keyboards when needed, capture an ensemble of extraordinary originality and captivating strength. The two records immediately become classics of Los Angeles punk-rock, and tracks like "Los Angeles", "The Unheard Music", "Johny Hit And Run Pauline", where Chuck Berry flirts with punk, "White Girl", "The Once Over Twice", "Universal Corner", and "Beyond And Back" rightfully enter among the milestones of rock.

At this point, X's sound begins to enrich itself with new inputs from roots-related rock. Signed with the Elektra label, the band released "Under The Big Black Sun" in 1982 and "More Fun In The New World" the following year, two mature and unforgettable works that cement X's place in history. Two albums that mix the compactness and purity of the early days with an artistic growth in writing and an evolution of image that yields perfect tracks like "Blue Spark", "The Hungry Wolf", "The Have Nots", "True Love", "Poor Girl", the gorgeous "I Must Not To Think Bad Thoughts", perhaps their best piece ever, and the politically charged "The New World", recently covered by Pearl Jam.
It will be in 1985, with the almost disastrous "Ain't Love Grand," inadequately produced by Michael Wagner, which gives the otherwise decent songs in the album a senselessly commercial hard-rock frame, that X returns to the ranks of common mortals. A weak album that desperately chases after mass success, which the band absolutely did not need.

At this point, the beautiful tale of the Los Angeles group unveils an unexpected ending. Billy Zoom decides to leave the group, and the subsequent breakup between Doe and Exene, married for four years, concludes another phase of their career. A career that resumes with guitars entrusted to Dave Alvin of the Blasters and former Lone Justice Tony Gilkyson and produces the remarkable "See How We Are" in 1987, a work of pure roots-rock influenced by early rock'n'roll and old country & western that boasts a new series of unforgettable songs. Songs worth mentioning include the profound title track, the notable "4th of July", the straightforward "I'm Lost", and the almost pettyan "When It Rains". However, the renewed enthusiasm is not enough and fails to prevent the breakup of the group at the end of the tour brilliantly immortalized on "Live At The Whisky A Go-Go", one of the great live albums of the Eighties alongside "Live At Raji's" by the Dream Syndicate.

A story, that of X, which ends where it began and remains confined to that decade despite the release of the weak, manneristic, and unimpressive "Hey Zeus" in 1993 or the recent "Live In Los Angeles". Much of X's exhilarating artistic journey, including all the tracks that made them immortal, are contained in "The Best: Make The Music go Bang!", an exhaustive Rhino box set that thoroughly recounts the various phases of the band's career from the first single "Adult Books" to the 1993 reunion, completely omitting the solo careers of the various members, which, as in the case of John Doe, have not been short of satisfactions. An anthology meticulously curated and unmissable that offers a complete view of the glorious saga of a great rock'n'roll band.