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June 17, 2005
 X - "Los Angeles" Song Review by Mark Deming In the novel The Day of the Locust, Nathaniel West described the steady flow of small-town people who, in the 1930s, were lured to California by the glamour of the movies: "Once there, they discover that sunshine isn't enough. They get tired of oranges, even of avocado pears and passion fruit...they watch the waves come in at Venice. There wasn't any ocean where most of them came from, but after you've seen one wave, you've seen them all...Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize they've been tricked and burn with resentment."By the 1970s, the myth-making of Hollywood had been joined by a newer, youth-oriented vision of California, created in part by the Beach Boys' fantasies of cars, girls, and endless waves, and the L.A. Mellow Mafia's epic tales of cocaine and casual decadence among the '70s rock star elite. Many of the rock fans who came to Los Angeles expecting to find El Dorado were no less disappointed than the bitter émigrés of West's novel, and "Los Angeles," the title song from X's brilliant debut album, captured one of them at the breaking point. Tired of being poor in a wealthy town, lashing out at the minorities all around her, and utterly unable to communicate in a town where no one says what they mean, she makes a last, desperate bid to save her sanity and decides to leave L.A. Both John Doe and Exene Cervenka moved to California in the 1970s, and like many of the members of L.A. punk rock community, their music was to a large degree a reaction to the pretty but hollow music that was pouring out of the L.A. hit factories -- and had nothing to do with the anger and desperation they saw around them every day. Doe and Cervenka didn't leave Los Angeles like their heroine, and they didn't start a riot like West's angry Midwesterners, but there's little doubt they understood the alienation in both stories all too well. --Mark Deming X - Los Angeles (2.35 MB) Krucoff.com powered by Removable Hype. Copyright © 2004 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, hunting tips, and family gossip. |
