A classic collection of rare, dark masterpieces!

Fantastic songs here collected beside fantastic artists, each one a bold and artistic masterpiece. Artists include R.E.M., Nick Cave, Sheryl Crow and a William S. Burroughs' take on "Star Me Kitten" that you will not soon forget. For sure an adult album, appreciated only by the outsider or paranormal-infatuated abductee-wannabe, or artist with the respect for briliance. The music is hard to classify, as it usually borders between rock and alterative, sometimes to the acoustic-style soft rock-meets-techno hybred. The music is so well-recorded and performed that it is often hard to imagine that it is nearly ten years old. I think that age will only add to the deeply hard core occult factor of this music, which can truly be discribed as the genuine article.

Okey, so I'm rambeling. It's incredible music! (Not the kind you listen to once and throw away!) My favs here would include "Man of Steel" by Frank Black, "My Dark Life" by Elvis Costello and "If you never say goodbye" by P.M. Dawn, but I love each and every one of these songs intimately. In short, Songs In the Key of X is an occult gem. So turn down the lights, put all chores aside, lay back, crank up the volume and let your imagination be guided along a seamy world of dark paranormal suspicion, lonely fear and optimistic intrigue. My god, the more I think about it the better I really realize that it is! (Rambeling again!)

So enjoy!

A Good Dark Alternative Album

When this cd came out, I was an 11-year-old X-files fan, so I bought it the week it came out just because it had the X-files logo on it. How fortunate it was, that it actually turned out to be a GOOD ALBUM. It is essentially a collection of songs which inspired or were inspired by the show, contributed by notable and interesting artists in the alternative rock field. There are popular grunge bands like Foo Fighters and Filter, and more obscure artists like Soul Coughing and Brian Eno, and even the popular Sheryl Crow. This was also, I beleive, the first of many apearances of Nick Cave's notorious "Red Right Hand" which apeared later in the soundtracks to Scream and then most recently Hell Boy.

If you like alternative rock, then you'll probably like this album. The artists are good, and the songs are interesting and unusual; with a dark mood to them that makes them more powerfull emotionally than the standard alternative rock fair. Even the more metal-oriented band Filter turns out a somber acoustic peice. Of course, some stuff is just downright wierd. Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand" is only the tip of the iceburg in terms of wierdness, when you hear William S. Buroughs' cover of REM's "Star Me Kitten", which is essentially an old man speaking (not singing) in a gravelly decrepit voice about how he wants sex, you'll almost certainly use the skip button the first time you play the album, if not every time. Then there's Screamin Jay Hawkin's "Frenzy" which consists of country/blue grass like guitar and a guy repeatedly yelling "FRENZYYY!! HABOUGHLGOULGHLAAAAH!!!".

The skippers are well worth it for the many good songs on the album. It's hard not to atleast moderately enjoy songs by classic 90's grunge bands like Foo Fighters, Filter, and the Meat Puppets even if they're not your favorite, particularly when the songs are so good. Then there's songs like Frank Black's "Man of Steel" and Evlis Costello & Brian Eno's "My Dark Life" which are simply excellent, rife with both emotion and dark ambience. There are also extremely dark songs like "Red Right Hand" and Rob Zombie & Alice Cooper's "Hands of Death" which you will either love or hate depending on your taste in music.

Overall this is a good album, with a nice collection of unusual but good songs with a nice dark tone to them. If you like 90's alternative rock, or you simply enjoy dark music, you will probably enjoy it. If you are easily wierded out, you may be warded off by some of the more unusual songs, but if you are openminded or enjoy unusual music, you will like it.

When I bought this album, even though I was very young, I had allready started listening to music, and this album was right up my alley. At the time I was listening to stuff like Nirvana and Green Day, but searching for more emotionally driven, moody music in bands like REM and Live. I think this album enhanced my taste for dark music, and was atleast a partial influence in my pursuit of bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode as I got older.

It may just be look like some novelty sound track album, but it is actually a well put together collection of good music. I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who like alternative music. I know I enjoyed it, and it actually influenced my taste in music from a young age. It's deffinitely a worthwhile purchase.

X-File fan or not, this is a great CD

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 highlighting 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.