Destination: L.A.

West Coast rap, country rock, timeless pop, classic rock . . . Los Angeles is the spark-spitting foundry for so much that is seminal in music: the experimentalism of the Beach Boys ("California Girls"), the poetic firestorm of the Doors ("L.A. Woman"), the bubblegum showbiz of the Monkees ("Pleasant Valley Sunday"), the satirical urban jubilation of Randy Newman ("I Love L.A."), and the visceral street sagas of N.W.A. ("Straight Outta Compton"). Allow L.A. to chew you up and spit you out, in Next Steps.

L.A. is a huge, sprawling mass of musical humanity — and you be as befuddled and bemused by our selections as those Beverly Hillbillies the Clampetts were. On the serious side, the threat of natural disaster hangs over L.A. like smog, a daily fear that has inevitably found its way into song. Bad Religion tackles the local wildfires, and more, on "Los Angeles Is Burning." Go from scuzzy street to shining sea, with our L.A. Deep Cuts.

Now that you have travelled down L.A.'s mean streets, it's time to move off the beaten track, to a place of psychedelic freakiness courtesy of the Seeds ("Can't Seem to Make You Mine"), and to Gene Clark's neighbourhoods of doom ("Los Angeles"). Courtney Love sure ain't thinking about surfing when she immortalises "Malibu" in song with Hole, Mama Cass gets fatalistic on "California Earthquake," and the Byrds mull over a "Bad Night at the Whiskey."

From lowland Compton to the Hollywood canyons and rock clubs, and all along the record company watchtowers of the Sunset Strip, Los Angeles remains the world's ultimate pop destination — a city steeped in sex 'n' drugs and rock 'n' roll . . . and gin 'n' juice. Here we gather LA's homegrown finest, every one of them rich in West Coast spirit, addicted to a city that has room for laid-back idealism (Bing Crosby, the Mamas & the Papas), urban gangsta-ism (Dr. Dre & N.W.A.) and hell-for-leather hedonism (Guns n' Roses). We love this dirty city.