Search - Various Artists :: Before X

A marvelous album

girl9green | USA | 12/02/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of the greatest "various artists" albums a person could ever own. I'm always cautious when buying one, since many times two or three songs on an album will stand out, and the other tracks are just bland fillers (and the ones that stand out have usually been overplayed on the radio). But this disc is just packed with some of the greatest alternative music ever, that you can listen to over and over, and never get sick of. If you've ever sat down and spaced out on music that's just so interesting sounding that it just takes you away, this is the perfect disc. All of the songs are just so marvelous. If the music isn't enough, it's got a pretty great cover as well, sort of X-Files-ish."

Outstanding compilation...almost perfect sign-of-the-times

Brent A. Anthonisen | Alpharetta, GA, USA | 05/12/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""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."