Before X

Artist: Various Artists
Label: Intersound Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD

UPC: 015095952424
EAN: 0015095952424
ASIN: B000000BYF

Release Date: 1997-11-04

Before X

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Goth

| Goth & Industrial | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Hardcore & Punk

New Wave

| New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Post-Punk

| New Wave & Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Compilations | Rock | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Rough Night In Jericho - Dreams So Real
That Is Why - Jellyfish
Jealous - Gene Loves Jezebel
I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
Cities In Dust - Siouxsie & The Banshees
A Girl In Trouble - Romeo Void
Missionary Man - Eurythmics
Welcome To The Boomtown - David & David
So Alive - Love & Rockets
Under The Milky Way - The Church
Everyday I Write The Book - Elvis Costello
Eye Of Fatima - Camper Van Beethoven
Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy
Nemesis - Shriekback
Institutionalized - Suicidal Tendencies

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding compilation...almost perfect sign-of-the-times.......2005-05-13

"Before X" is probably the best title that could possibly have been used for this collection of college radio gems from the mid-to-late '80's before Nirvana exploded onto the scene and Perry Farrell started mass-marketing "alternative" music with the Lollapalooza festival tours in 1991.

Pretty much all the "hits" that made their way across the underground threshold for college mainstay bands are represented here (although could Eurythmics have STILL been considered "alternative" by the time "Missionary Man" came out? Ditto Elvis Costello), songs that anyone currently in the mid-to-late '30's (assuming they had any musical taste whatsoever at the time) as well as some of the 20-somethings now catching up on the "fauxstalgia" trend perpetuated by '80's wanna-be bands like Franz Ferdinand and the Killers should know by heart.

We have both ex-Bauhaus camps represented with Love & Rockets' Top 20 score "So Alive" as well as Peter Murphy's "Cuts You Up", the Church's crossover classic "Under The Milky Way" in all its neuvo-psychedelic glory, the best opening track to arguably the best album (debut or otherwise) of all time with the Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored" and perhaps the poster child of alternative music well-represented with Camper van Beethoven's "Eye of Fatima". For the sake of argument (see the previous Eurythmics reference) David & David's ode to '80's success/excess "Welcome to the Boomtown" also shows up (I hadn't heard this song in at least 15 years...does anyone around here even REMEMBER the Porsche 944 these days?) is also included and a Siouxsie track that probably would've been better subbed with a bigger crossover hit "Kiss Them For Me", but that may have been a bit too late for the timeframe represented by the rest of the music here.

This is a very good collection of tunes that is out-of-print but readily available at ridiculously cut-rate prices if you know where to look. About the only thing keeping it from a five-star rating is the inclusion of Eurythmics and Elvis Costello (may as well have included a Pretenders track) and the exclusion of Michael Penn's "No Myth", arguably the finest song by any artist of that era. For a single disc compilation that captures a particular era's spirit, this one IS awfully hard to beat, though.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Five Seasons ~ Eddie Daniels

Dance of the Forest Rain ~ Straight Ahead

Rendezvous ~ Jerome Harris

No Problem ~ Sonny Rollins

Gentle Eyes ~ Art Farmer

Flamenco Roots [IMPORT]

Wasureyado/Shinobigawa ~ Eiko Segawa

Terra Africa ~ Various Artists

Bright Fun & Rock N Roll ~ Trash Box

Boy's Quest ~ Flame