Description

Songs in the Key of X cannot really be called a soundtrack; it consists not of songs necessarily from The X-Files but songs inspired by and worthy of inclusion in the show. It's quite an eclectic mix, featuring many dark songs that sparkle with the horrid electricity one associates with The X-Files. The premiere track has to be Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. This song is itself part of the lore and mythology of the show; any X-Files fanatic can tell you the story of how Chris Carter heard this song driving home from work one night and fell in love with it. Besides highlightingmore… the road trip of abductee Duane Barry in Season Two, the song has also been featured prominently in the Scream movies, so this one will be familiar to many. Clearly, most of these songs are in the same dark, forceful vein - e.g., Danzig's Deep, Screamin' Jay Hawkins' Frenzy, and Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn) from the powerhouse duo of Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper. Soul Coughing's contribution Unmarked Helicopters may best fit the milieu of The X-Files and is an excellent song to boot. The Foo Fighters, a band that has never really captured my attention, makes a nice addition with Down in the Park. Frank Black's Man of Steel was a pleasant surprise to me, having only heard a much different kind of performance from him on Gordon Gano's Hitting the Ground. The great variety of songs here means two things: there is something for everyone here, but every individual will also undoubtedly have a few tracks he/she doesn't particularly care for. Sheryl Crow's On the Outside is a perfectly good song, but it doesn't seem to fit here in my opinion. Elvis Costello's My Dark Life has potential but never succeeds in grabbing my attention. Star Me Kitten from William S. Burroughs & R.E.M. is just strange and almost unexplainable (it also is the primary reason for the Explicit Lyrics sticker on the cover). The big mystery here for me, though, is P.M. Dawn. Not only does their song If You Never Say Goodbye seem out of place, their remix of Mark Snow's excellent X-Files Theme is quite unnecessary given the greatness of Mark Snow's original version that starts this CD off with a bang. You don't have to be an X-Files fan to enjoy this CD, but fans will have much more appreciation of the ingenuity and creative track selection that went into this album. The liner notes feature some perfectly odd artist drawings of X-Files characters and scenes as well as statements about the album from X-Files bigwigs Chris Carter and David Was. One should not think this album was released just to make money off of the hot X-Files name; there is a lot of quality music here that one might not ever have the chance to discover on one's own.

Tracks

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Info:

Category:

Music > Soundtracks

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

Comments:

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Cover Info:

Title:

Songs in the Key of X (1996) Retail CD

Part:

Front

Dimensions:

2832 x 2814 px

Size:

2,172 KB

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420 (0 today)

Uploaded:

Report a Problem Wrong Cover Duplicate Image Bad Quality Wrong Info

21/02/11 by bob123

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