Wild Gift

Wild Gift is the second studio album by American rock band X, released in March 1981 by Slash Records. It was very well received critically, and was voted No. 2 for the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.[1] The album was ranked No. 333 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[2][3]

Wild Gift
Studio album by
X
ReleasedMay 1981
RecordedMarch 1981
StudioClover Recorders, Los Angeles, Golden Sound Studios, Hollywood
GenrePunk rock
Length33:02
LabelSlash
ProducerRay Manzarek
X chronology
Los Angeles
(1980)		 Wild Gift
(1981)		 Under the Big Black Sun
(1982)

In 1988, Slash issued Los Angeles and Wild Gift jointly on a single compact disc. Wild Gift was remastered and reissued in 2001 by Rhino Records, with seven bonus tracks.

The track "White Girl" was sampled by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their 1989 album Mother's Milk, in the song "Good Time Boys".[4] The Chili Peppers song's lyrics mentioned X's John Doe specifically, "whose voice is made of gold".

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[4]
Christgau's Record GuideA+[5]
Entertainment WeeklyA[6]
Rolling Stone[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[8]
Spin Alternative Record Guide10/10[9]

In Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), critic Robert Christgau gave Wild Gift a rare A+ rating, writing that

"hippies couldn't understand jealousy because they believed in universal love; punks can't understand it because they believe sex is a doomed reflex of existentially discrete monads. As X-Catholics obsessed with a guilt they can't accept and committed to a subculture that gives them no peace, Exene and John Doe are prey to both misconceptions, and their struggle with them is thrilling and edifying ... Who knows whether the insightful ministrations of their guitarist will prove as therapeutic for them as for you and me, but I say trust a bohemian bearing gifts. How often do we get a great love album and a great punk album in the same package?"[5]

Christgau later ranked the album third on his "Personal Best" list for the 1980s, the highest placing of any rock album.[10]

When The Village Voice held their Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1981, Wild Gift was ranked at No. 2, behind Sandinista! by the Clash.[1] It was listed at No. 334 in Rolling Stone's list "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[2][3]

Track listing

All tracks written by John Doe and Exene Cervenka.

Side one
  1. "The Once Over Twice" – 2:31
  2. "We're Desperate" – 2:00
  3. "Adult Books" – 3:19
  4. "Universal Corner" – 4:33
  5. "I'm Coming Over" – 1:14
  6. "It's Who You Know" – 2:17

Side two
  1. "In This House That I Call Home" – 3:34
  2. "Some Other Time" – 2:17
  3. "White Girl" – 3:27
  4. "Beyond and Back" – 2:49
  5. "Back 2 the Base" – 1:33
  6. "When Our Love Passed Out on the Couch" – 1:57
  7. "Year 1" – 1:18

Bonus tracks (2001 reissue)
  1. "Beyond and Back (Live)" – 2:48
  2. "Blue Spark (Demo)" – 2:04
  3. "We're Desperate (Single version)" – 2:01
  4. "Back 2 the Base (Live)" – 1:40
  5. "Heater (Rehearsal)" (Doe) – 2:32
  6. "White Girl (Single Mix)" – 3:29
  7. "The Once Over Twice (Unissued Single Mix)" – 2:35

Personnel

Charts
Sales chart performance for Wild Gift
Chart Position Date Duration
Billboard 200[11] 165 June 28, 1981 5 weeks

References
  1. "The 1981 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll". The Village Voice. February 1, 1982. Retrieved 23 October 2005.
  2. Levy, Joe; Steven Van Zandt (2006) [2005]. "334 | Wild Gift - X". Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (3rd ed.). London: Turnaround. ISBN 1-932958-61-4. OCLC 70672814. Retrieved 26 February 2006.
  3. "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
  4. Prato, Greg. "Wild Gift – X". AllMusic. Retrieved September 11, 2005.
  5. Christgau, Robert (1990). "X: Wild Gift". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X. Retrieved February 26, 2006.
  6. "X: Wild Gift". Entertainment Weekly: 75. September 28, 2001.
  7. Cohen, Debra Rae (August 20, 1981). "X: Wild Gift". Rolling Stone (350). Archived from the original on May 7, 2008. Retrieved April 4, 2006.
  8. Sisario, Ben (2004). "X". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 889–90. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  9. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  10. Christgau, Robert (January 2, 1990). "Decade Personal Best: '80s". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2010-10-17.
  11. "X". Billboard. Retrieved April 30, 2020.
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