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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <link rel=stylesheet href="/rxgau.css" type="text/css"> <meta name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW"> <title>Robert Christgau: CG Book '80s: X</title> </head> <body bgcolor="#e0ffff"> <table width="100%" border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=10> <tr><td colspan=2 bgcolor="#1010e0"> <a class=xlnk href="/"><img class=xlnk src="/rxgau.gif" width=287 height=47 alt="Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics"></a> </td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor="#1010e0" valign=top> <table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=3 border=1> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap><a class=xlnk href="/cg.php">Consumer Guide:</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/web/cgusers.php">User's Guide</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php">Grades 1990-</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bk-cg70/grades.php">Grades 1969-89</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="https://robertchristgau.substack.com/">And It Don't Stop</a> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap><a class=xlnk href="/books.php">Books:</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-bkreps.php">Book Reports</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-isitya.php">Is It Still Good to Ya?</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-goitc.php">Going Into the City</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-cg90s.php">Consumer Guide: 90s</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-guaw.php">Grown Up All Wrong</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-cg80s.php">Consumer Guide: 80s</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-cg70s.php">Consumer Guide: 70s</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-aow.php">Any Old Way You Choose It</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/bk-fest.php">Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough</a> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap><a class=xlnk href="/xgausez.php">Xgau Sez</a></td></tr> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap>Writings:   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/dontstop/index.php">And It Don't Stop</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/cg/index.php">CG Columns</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bn/index.php">Rock&Roll& [new]</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/rock/index.php">Rock&Roll& [old]</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/music/index.php">Music Essays</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/cdrev/index.php">Music Reviews</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bkrev/index.php">Book Reviews</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/najp/index.php">NAJP Blog</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/play/index.php">Playboy</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bl/index.php">Blender</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/rs/index.php">Rolling Stone</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/bb/index.php">Billboard</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/vr/index.php">Video Reviews</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/pnj/index.php">Pazz & Jop</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/recyc/index.php">Recyclables</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/news/index.php">Newsprint</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/list/index.php">Lists</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/xg/misc/index.php">Miscellany</a> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap><a class=xlnk href="/biblio.php">Bibliography</a></td></tr> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap><a class=xlnk href="/xg/npr/index.php">NPR</a></td></tr> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap>Web Site:   <a class="xlnk" href="/index.php">Home</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/map.php">Site Map</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/contact.php">Contact</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/newest.php">What's New?</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/rss.php"><img src="/images/rss-button-12.jpg">  RSS</a> <tr><td class=xlnk nowrap>Carola Dibbell:   <a class="xlnk" href="http://caroladibbell.com/">Carola's Website</a>   <a class="xlnk" href="/u/cd/">Archive</a> <tr><td class=xlnk><a class=xlnk href="/get_artist.php">CG Search:</a> <form method=get action="/get_artist.php"> <input type=text name=name size=15> </form></tr> <tr><td class=xlnk><a class="xlnk" href="https://google.com/search">Google Search:</a> <form method="get" action="https://google.com/search" target="_blank"> <input type="hidden" name="sitesearch" value="robertchristgau.com"> <input type="text" name="q" size="15" maxlength="255"> </form></tr> <tr><td class="xlnk"><a class="xlnk" href="https://twitter.com/rxgau">Twitter:</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="https://twitter.com/rxgau" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @rxgau</a> <script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script> </td></tr> </table> </td><td valign=top width="100%">  <a href="/bk-cg80s.php"> <img src="/images/cg80s.jpg" height=145 width=95 align=right border=0 alt="CG-80s Book Cover"></a><h2>Consumer Guide '80s: X</h2> X: Los Angeles (Slash, 1980) From poet-turned-chanteuse Exene to junk-guitar journeyman Billy Zoom, these aren't mohawked NME-reading truants who think Darby Crash is God or the Antichrist. They're sexy thrift-shopping bohos who think Charles Bukowski is Norman Mailer or Henry Miller. This may not be exactly the aura they crave, but combined with some great tunes it enables them to make a smart argument for a desperately stupid scene. Of course, when they're looking for a cover (or a producer), they go to the Doors, prompting L.A. critic Jay Mitchell to observe: "Their death and gloom aura is closer to the Eagles, which is to say it is all Hollywood." But only in L.A. is that an insult, elsewhere the distinction between a city and its industrial hub is more like a clever apercu. A- X: Wild Gift (Slash, 1981) Hippies couldn't understand jealousy because they believed in universal love; punks can't understand it because they believe sex is a doomed reflex of existentially discrete monads. As X-Catholics obsessed with a guilt they can't accept and committed to a subculture that gives them no peace, Exene and John Doe are prey to both misconceptions, and their struggle with them is thrilling and edifying--would the Ramones could cop to such wisdom. Who knows whether the insightful ministrations of their guitarist will prove as therapeutic for them as for you and me, but I say trust a bohemian bearing gifts. How often do we get a great love album and a great punk album in the same package? A+ X: Under the Big Black Sun (Elektra, 1982) John and Exene attribute "The Hungry Wolf"'s rather feral view of marriage, in which lifelong mates roam the urban wastes with dripping jaws, to the Sioux, but I think they got the idea from Ted Nugent: they should check out Farley Mowat, who describes wolves as lifelong mates who live on mice and never fuck around. These are good songs bracingly played, but the words hint at a certain familiar down-and-out romanticism. They do it with more style and concision than Bukowski, Waits, or Rickie Lee Jones. They do it almost as well as Richard Thompson, in fact. But this time it's Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake who are putting the songs over. Best lyric: "Dancing With Tears in My Eyes," written in Tin Pan Alley before any of these young bohemians, Billy included, was born. A- X: More Fun in the New World (Elektra, 1983) Aimed at the no-future generation, X's passionate reconstruction of musical (and marital) tradition is salutory, and this is their most accomplished album. Both the songwriting and Billy Zoom's guitar reach new heights of junk virtuosity, and "Breathless" is a stroke. But they're too complacent in their tumult. Their righteous anti-Brit chauvinism prevents them from seeing that in its way Culture Club, say, is at least as satisfying and generous-spirited as the Big Boys. And their unabashed beatnik identifications not only stinks slightly of retro but misses the point of rock bohemianism, which is that a proudly nonavant band like this ought to risk a little of its precious authenticity in an all-out effort to make converts. A- X: Ain't Love Grand (Elektra, 1985) After five years of wresting art from commerce and/or vice versa, John and Exene try to have it both ways. Satisfying their bohemian urges with the neofolk Knitters on the art label Slash, they appease their major mentors and keep Billy in the band by taking X to the same producer as Christian heavy metal boys Stryper. Only just as you'd figure, Michael Wagener can't make John and Exene (or even Billy) sound commercial enough to convert anyone. On the first side he has trouble making them sound like anything at all. B X: See How We Are (Elektra, 1987) Even during the first four songs, when the sustained detail of the writing--with a boost from Dave Alvin's tormented yet unembittered "4th of July"--makes it seems they'll fight for every inch, you miss Billy Zoom's syncretic junk: fine though he is, Tony Gilkyson is too neoclassy for these convinced vulgarians. Then the material devolves into complaints, throwaways, wasted stanzas, and utter clinkers. B X: Live at the Whiskey a Go-Go on the Fabulous Sunset Strip (Elektra, 1988) Twenty-four titles, the half dozen new ones less than essential, and as Tony Gilkyson zips through 16 songs made flesh by Billy Zoom you begin to wonder whether the guitarist was the secret of the band after all. Maybe it was just the guitar. B+ XTC: Black Sea (Virgin/RSO, 1980) Virtuosos shouldn't show off--it's bad manners and bad art. I'm suitably dazzled by the breathless pace of their shit--from folk croak to Beach Boys croon in the twinkling of a track, with dissonant whatnot embellishing herkyjerk whozis throughout--but I find their refusal to flow graceless two ways. On what do they predicate their smartypants rights? On words that rarely reclaim clich閟 about working-class futility, middle-class hypocrisy, militarist atrocity--not to mention love like rockets and girls who glow. They do, however, show real feeling for teen males on the make and, hmm, the recalcitrance of language. B+ XTC: English Settlement (Virgin/Epic, 1982) With voices (filters, chants, wimp cool) and melodies (chants, modes, arts cool) ever more abstract, I figured Colin Moulding had finally conquered Andy Partridge and turned this putative pop band into Yes for the '80s. But it's more like good Argent, really, with the idealism less philosophical than political--melt the guns, urban renewal as bondage, o! that generation gap. And fortunately, the melodies aren't so much abstract as reserved, with the most outgoing stolen from Vivaldi or somebody by none other than Andy Partridge. B+ XTC: Mummer (Geffen, 1983) Having retired full-time to the studio, the definitive English art-poppers sound more mannered and arid than ever, which is no less bothersome just because it's one way they have of telling us something. By now, there are hints of guilt-tripping in Andy Partridge's awareness of what he isn't, and while "Human Alchemy" ("To turn their skins of black into the skins/Of brightest gold") and "Funk Pop a Roll" ("But please don't listen to me/I've already been poisoned by this industry") are notably mordant takes on two essential rock and roll subjects, Partridge deliberately limits their reach. The eccentric dissonances that sour his melodies and the fitful time shifts that undercut his groove may well bespeak his own sense of distance, but art-poppers who command both melody and groove are rare enough that I wish he'd find another way. B- XTC: Waxworks: Some Singles 1977-1982 (Geffen, 1984) Proof, or at least evidence, that they're the pop band they claim to be: though most of these songs were also album cuts, not a one of them--not even the samples from Drums and Wires, their most hard-edged and least fussy long-player--sounds more at home on its respective album than it does here, in the company of its peers. In short, this is the essential collection, less compelling than the Buzzcocks' comparable Singles Going Steady only because they mean to stimulate rather than compel. More equal than others: "Statue of Liberty," "Senses Working Overtime." A- XTC: The Big Express (Geffen, 1984) Remember when Difford & Tilbrook were writing a musical? Sounds like a job for Partridge & Moulding. They could name it after "The Everyday Story of Smalltown." Which would keep them working at the proper scale and be the best thing for steam-powered trains since Ray Davies. B XTC: Skylarking (Geffen, 1986) Imagine Sgt. Pepper if McCartney hadn't needed Lennon--if he hadn't been such a wet--and you'll get an inkling of what these insular popsters have damn near pulled off. Granted, there's barely a hint of overarching significance, but after all, this isn't 1967. With Todd Rundgren sequencing and twiddling those knobs, they continue strong for the first nine or ten (out of fourteen) songs. Only when the topics become darker and more cosmic do they clutter things with sound and whimsy; as long as they content themselves with leisurely, Shelleyan evocations of summer love and the four seasons, they'll draw you into their world if you give them the chance--most enticingly on a song called "Grass," about something good to do there. A- XTC: Oranges and Lemons (Geffen, 1989) Compulsive formalists can't fabricate meaning--by which I mean nothing deeper than extrinsic interest--without a frame (cf. Skylarking, even the Dukes of Stratosfear). The only concept discernible on this hour-long double-LP is CD. Def Leppard got there first. B- <h3>X: Compilations</h3> None. <hr> <table width="100%"><tr valign=center><td> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=W&bk=80"><img src="/icon/prev.gif" alt="W"></a> </td><td align=center width="100%"><a href="/get_chap.php?k=A&bk=80">A</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=B&bk=80">B</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=C&bk=80">C</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=D&bk=80">D</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=E&bk=80">E</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=F&bk=80">F</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=G&bk=80">G</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=H&bk=80">H</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=I&bk=80">I</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=J&bk=80">J</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=K&bk=80">K</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=L&bk=80">L</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=M&bk=80">M</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=N&bk=80">N</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=O&bk=80">O</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=P&bk=80">P</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=Q&bk=80">Q</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=R&bk=80">R</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=S&bk=80">S</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=T&bk=80">T</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=U&bk=80">U</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=V&bk=80">V</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=W&bk=80">W</a> [X] <a href="/get_chap.php?k=Y&bk=80">Y</a> <a href="/get_chap.php?k=Z&bk=80">Z</a> </td><td><a href="/get_chap.php?k=Y&bk=80"><img src="/icon/next.gif" alt="Y"></a> </td></tr></table>  </td> </table> </body> </html>