More Fun In The New World
	Produced by Ray Manzarek
	Released on September 1983
	US CHART POSITION #86
	Find it at GEMM
60283-2 cover [high resolution scan]

K ronomyth 4.0: DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU. X-use me a moment while I erase another promising punk band from the roster. Scratcha, scratcha, scratcha. This is what it was like growing up in the 80s: a new “punk” band would emerge, intent on changing the world, and in a few years they would be assimilated into the insatiable organism of mainstream music, playing some lame-ass rock & roll cover song and name-checking Wilson Pickett. More Fun isn’t a 180-degree turn from the hungry punk of Big Black Sun, but it is a shift toward more commercial rock and roll, led by an unfortunate cover of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Breathless” and an ill-advised foray into funk that has them sounding like a cross between Talking Heads and The B-52s (“True Love Pt.#2”). Fans of their last record will be able to salvage a good half of this, starting with “The New World,” “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts” and “Devil Doll.” The best of the rest still doesn’t hold a candle to the worst of Big Black Sun, which is a damn shame. That this record gets consistently high marks from critics shows how few people really had any skin in the punk revolution. Rolling Stones’ Chris Connelly called “True Love Pt.#2” a “rousing closer for the LP, because it shows that X, like the punk movement that spawned them, isn’t some pop-hating musical aberration.” There are so many things wrong with that sentence, beginning with the use of the word “rousing.” As X morphed into a renegade roots rock band, I stopped worrying about the loss of another idol and started enjoying albums like See How We Are. More Fun is still played out at high energy, so it’s not a snooze, but the material and the motives are worlds removed from Big Black Sun.

60283-2 back sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. THE NEW WORLD    3:25
2. WE'RE HAVING MUCH MORE FUN!    3:05
3. TRUE LOVE PT. #1    2:15
4. POOR GIRL    2:50
5. MAKE THE MUSIC GO BANG!    3:00
6. BREATHLESS    (Otis Blackwell)    2:15
7. I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS    4:10
8. DEVIL DOLL    3:05
9. PAINTING THE TOWN BLUE    3:20
10. HOT HOUSE    2:55
11. DRUNK IN MY PAST    2:51
12. I SEE RED    3:00
13. TRUE LOVE PT. #2    (Lyrics by Johny/Queenie/Dinky/D.J./Denise/Zoom)    5:00
    
    CD reissue bonus tracks
    
14. POOR GIRL (DEMO/REMIX)
15. TRUE LOVE PT. #2 (DEMO/REMIX)
16. DEVIL DOLL (DEMO/REMIX)
17. I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS (DEMO/REMIX)
    
    Tracks 1-13 written by John X. Doe and Exene Cervenka/Music by X unless noted

CREDITS

D.J. BONEBRAKE -- drums & percussion
EXENE CERVENKA -- vocals, front cover
JOHN X. DOE -- vocals & bass
BILLY ZOOM -- guitars
Clay Rose -- engineer, mixing
Ray Manzarek -- mixing
Brad Gilderman -- mixing
Raymond Bridgers -- photography
Rick Schmidlin -- photography
Norm Ung -- back cover

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