THIS MUSIC ROCKS MY WORLD
So I'm at a popular independent CD store in Los Angeles, buying the soundtrack to the broadway show "Dreamgirls" (SHUT UP! IT'S FOR RESEARCH! I DON'T REALLY CARE FOR MUSICALS! SHUT UP!). So I'm in line, and there's punk rock music on the in-house speakers, and I think "I should get that X album."

Yes, X. The legendary L.A. punk band from the 80's, X.

I wanted to get one because 1) I always wanted an X album, and 2) I didn't want to look like a girl buying an album of showtunes.

So I'm looking around, but they don't have the album I want, so I have to fall back in line with my Broadway musical and feel like a wuss. I go to another independent CD store (this time a small California chain named after a single cell creature), and I find it. X's "See How We Are."

I drive home, giddy as a schoolgirl (because of the X album, not the "Dreamgirls" album, so SHUT UP). I pop in the X CD and listen to the whole thing from beginning to end, reading all the liner notes, even listening to the bonus tracks.

X ROCKS THE FREE WORLD AND EVEN SOME DICTATORSHIPS. Their sound is a combination of punk, rockabilly, and American folk music. How did they do it? For a hard rocking band, their lyrics are so poetic and socially conscious. They express not just anger, but despair and longing. John Doe and Exene Cervenka's vocals are too much. They are angry, heartbroken, full of the stuff of life.

Before them, I could not imagine that punk rock could sound so achingly pretty.