Songs in the Key of X


Noir is one of those confusing umbrella concepts for a feeling. Or rather, it is the combination of characteristics that produce a certain ambiguous unease. 

Those characteristics are generally cynicism, moral ambiguity, fatalism, and often paranoia. You might be familiar with its manifestation as Crime Fiction. Black and white, the good guy isn't necessarily good and the bad guy isn't necessarily bad, everybody distrusts each other to the point that it doesn't even matter because it will play out exactly as bad as it should. Or, maybe you remember my pointing it out in the contexts of Thomas Dolby and Pink Floyd. I'd call it a doorway to doom.

I've got an album for that: Songs in the Key of X.  It answers the important question "what would the soundtrack of The X-Files sound like if you guys and dolls wrote songs inspired by The X-Files?" A few of the tracks weren't made for the album, like the song that inspired the idea in the first place, Red Right Hand, or Frenzy from Screamin' Jay Hawkins, but the ethos is undeniable.

It's a smorgasbord of everything, and it's also probably the only place in the universe where Sheryl Crow, Danzig, and P.M. Dawn could appear courtesy of apprehensive spookyness for fun. How DO you define normal, David Duchovny?

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