X - Los Angeles

Everything about X seems so generic at first glance. The band's name is just a letter, and their debut album, Los Angeles, shares a title with about 10,000 other songs already in existence. One of the band members goes by the name John Doe. Seriously, John Doe. From the eyes of an outsider, they're just another punk band to be forgotten in time. But as anyone who's heard this album in full could tell you, they have every reason to be distinguished from the pack of hard-nosed punks to emerge in the early '80s.

John Doe and Exene Cervenka, the dual leads of X, have crafted a unique blend of the 3-chord punk of their era and bluesy, '50s rock-and-roll riffs, prevalent in songs like "Johny Hit and Run Paulene", a dark and anarchic masterpiece so immediate in its message that it almost comes off as ironic. Los Angeles has no secrets, and at certain points, it almost feels like it was created to be as relentlessly blunt as possible, lyrics and music alike. It's by no means the best album ever spawned from the infamous California punk scene, but it's easily one of the most original and finely tuned the genre has to offer.

Final Score: 84/100