A four-and-a-half-minute medley of wailing electric guitars, head-banging rhythms, and testosterone-amped hooting and hollering, “Girls, Girls, Girls” has come to define the Sunset Strip and its infamous 1980s party scene. Mötley Crüe’s most instantly recognizable anthem serves as a lyrical directory of strip clubs from Atlanta to Vancouver to Paris, but its sound is pure late-night Los Angeles. But at the heart of the metal song is a heartfelt love letter to Los Angeles, the neon paradise where all the girls raise hell. “Girls, Girls, Girls” is primarily a not-so-subtle ode to strippers. Mötley Crüe Credit: Photo by Barry Levine is both a city built on fantasies, and a city where fantasies dissolve in the cold light of day - and Soul Coughing’s funny, phantasmagoric portrait captures both aspects in near-perfect symmetry. and you’re hurtling down an empty freeway towards that last, lonely, desperate booty call, with the sun’s first rays “painting the smoke over our heads an imperial violet” and only a blathering morning radio jock to keep you company. “You are going to Reseda to make love to a model from Ohio / Whose real name you don't know.” Somehow, without ever having set foot in Los Angeles (a brief trip to Orange County notwithstanding), a young singer-songwriter from New York named Mike Doughty nailed the hazy, rootless feeling that falls over you in this city when it’s 5 a.m. Through a succession of rapid-fire verses, Chali 2na, Akil, Zaakir and Marc 7 give a primer on the “the land of earthquakes and high crime rates,” where hopes are blown, drama collects, and you better not need a babysitter if you're ever going to make it out alive with your big dreams intact. On “Lausd,” the city becomes the subject, as each J5 member takes turns spitting reality checks to anyone who hasn't made it past the SoCal clichés of enviable weather and Hollywood glamour.
Released in 2000, the record featured 15 tracks of freestyle-inspired knowledge, peppered with an occasional drop of L.A. Jurassic 5's Quality Control was the hip-hop collective's major-label debut and brought the first national attention to the slew of talent coming out of South Central’s Good Life Café open mic nights. This track is a rare example of outsiders perfectly capturing the zeitgeist of L.A. All these strung out suburban punks have the problems other poor jerks only dream of having - too much time and too many goddamned drugs.
It’s a classic story of rich ennui, told through sun-bleached Hollywood lens flare.
exodus in “White Punks on Dope” on their 1975 debut record, they did it with characteristic outrageousness. So when the San Francisco-based group took on the suburbs-to-L.A. With their circusy hijinks and cast of dozens, cleverly ripping apart the day-glo showbiz of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, they always pushed the envelope. Any recent transplant who’s spent a weekend cruising our city’s endless sprawl can relate to the song’s breezy chorus: “I’ve gone 500 miles today … and never even left L.A.” -Andy Hermannīizarro ‘70s art-punk had a million early adopters, but none of them could out-weird or out-theatric The Tubes. (“Pescado mojado me encontré”), Watts Towers, Mulholland Drive. “Come a Long Way,” from 1992’s Arkansas Traveler, is the Texas native's rollicking ode to her adopted hometown, told in flashes of familiar landmarks seen from the back of a motorcycle: MacArthur Park, East L.A. Because in her late ‘80s/early ‘90s golden years, she was one of the warmest, wittiest singer-songwriters to cross over from the college folk circuit into the mainstream. It’s too bad Michelle Shocked is best-known these days for committing career suicide with a bizarre anti-gay rant at a 2013 show in San Francisco.