Is Wild Gift X's best album?

I randomly decided to fix my X-sized blind spot a few days ago, having only knowingly heard a couple tracks from Los Angeles before. This might be honeymoon phase hyperbole, but I think Wild Gift is the greatest punk rock album I've ever heard. Every second of this thing is smart, seedy, sexy, and exploding with hooks. Exene and John's vocal chemistry is magical. The riffage is outrageous. "Got a hole in my heart the size of my heart." I'm kicking myself for sleeping on this band for so long.

I'm digging the other classic-era albums too, especially More Fun In the New World, but Wild Gift is on a whole other level

this post adds joy to my world

it needs that, it does

<3

Cervenka’s first solo LP is amazingly underrated, but Doe’s work outside of the group is just so consistently solid

Do you mean "Old Wives Tales"?

I love John's solo best-of, it shows that consistency you mentioned.

A lot of folks from that era have strong but somewhat overlooked solo catalogs. John Doe, Dave Alvin, Chuck Prophet, Peter Case ...

Yes, Old Wives Tales. Her later work outside of X is really solid, too. It’s only Zoom who’s never really recorded much of note outside of the band, but I think he still operates a very high-end custom guitar company?

I like this album better than Los Angeles, but it feels like the quality control drops suddenly at the finish. Ending your album with three progressively weaker up-tempo throwaways is maybe a way of proving your punk bonafides, but it doesn't result in a great record 40 years later.

I'm a huge fan of Back 2 The Base, but otherwise yeah.