Pixies: Classic or Dud

The Pixies' 'Caribou' owes a lot to Hüsker Dü's 'Find Me'. Chord sequences, Black Francis's vocals mimicking both Bob Mould's fury vox plus Grant Hart's more ethereal backing vocals. Both great songs but for me, it's all about Hüsker Dü.

CRAIG MONTGOMERY (Nirvana soundman)
We drove down to L.A. from Seattle to film the “Teen Spirit” video and do some shows. And I remember being in the van, and Kurt was in the back and he played me “Teen Spirit” on the boom box. And he asked me, “Do you think it sounds too much like the Pixies?”

Nothing more sublimely odd to me than Pixies being cited as the "influence" intermediary between Husker Du and Nirvana...

I agree with tylerw about Nirvana & Pixies being not that similar, though Kurt pays homage everywhere: the oft-cited similarity between SLTS & Gouge Away (the rolling bassline during the quiet verses of SLTS is an obvious lift), enlisting Albini for In Utero, assorted moments of angular ferocity all over the Geffen albums (Drain You is not soft-loud, but it sounds kinda Pixies to these ears)...

I've written this before, maybe even earlier in this thread, but I think the whole idea that 'soft verse-loud chorus' was a formula that Pixies came up with and Nirvana stole doesn't really hold up. Yes, Pixies used it, but they never banked on it, certainly never relied on it, and in their hands it never codified into a 'formula': none of these things can be said about how Nirvana used 'soft-loud.' I mean, they use it in 'Gigantic' but then use the exact opposite formula for 'Where is My Mind' where the most electric-loud rock element in that song--Santiago's seesawing lead--drops out completely during the chorus. Don't use it for "Here Comes Your Man", kind of use it in "Monkey" but there--even though the tension builds up in the verses to be let off in the choruses--the real dynamic movement is the way that the verses get progressively louder and how that contrasts with the melodically-fixed chorus (ie the loudest part of that song is not in the chorus but the "AND GOD IS SEVEN!" part in the 3rd verse).

Which brings me to my main point, which is that even though Pixies used 'soft-loud' frequently and with great effect (Gouge Away, Tame, Into the White), it was just one element among many in their experiments with structure--their desire to weld together what the SPIN Alternative Record Guide referred to as 'raw' and 'cooked' punk, or, as Simon Reynolds put it, 'luscious' sounds with 'haggard' ones--and they were just as apt to reverse it, to offset it with weird elements, or to jettison it altogether.

I feel a more common signature element of Pixies music was their fondness of the lopsided musical phrase, which is why I think the Toadies sound more like Pixies than Nirvana ever did...

Nirvana had way more metal/hard rock in their blood than the Pixies.

i always thought they sounded like the b52s with some hispanic chordage & the sexual content you would only at the time find on a prince record. as a teen i found that exciting. some hispanic chordage.
i love albini's oft-quoted typically trolly statement. not sure just how "superior" or different big black were - verse chorus verse songs with singing. how quaint!
for me it all went to pot with that awful JAMC cover & songs about UFOs, although i love love love alec eiffel & that 1st frank black solo record

U-Mass and Alec Eiffel are pretty rad but to me the real keeper off Trompe is Sad Punk...

Of all their A+ great songs, I think the relatively minor "Letter To Memphis" might now be my favorite.

Yes, but for me that song is inextricable from "Palace of the Brine" and "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons". If I want to listen to one of them, I have to listen to all of them.

i think trome le monde is pretty great. it's different from what came before, maybe not enough kim deal, but i like or love every song. and yeah, it's got a great flow, feels like a big long song suite.

*trompe*

All of Trompe Le Monde is awesome fuiud

I turn it off after Motorway to Roswell...

For real, this whole interview c. Trompe is great:

http://aleceiffel.free.fr/bf_bm.html

lol that's funny about them having "Ratt or Ozzy" next door to their rehearsal space. makes perfect sense now!

I should really pick up Trompe Le Monde sometime

i really do think the reason it's less loved is because kim deal doesn't supply a lot of backing vocals -- or at least not as many as on previous albums.

I turn it off after Motorway to Roswell...

Me too!

In my case, I was super super super obsessed with Surfer Rosa and Doolittle and didn't get the same level of POW BANG AWESOME enjoyment from the subsequent albums (except for "Planet of Sound"), so I never got them. 20 years later, I'd probably like them a lot more.

yeah it'll probably sound fresher. i've pretty much had pilgrim/surfer rosa/doolittle inscribed in my brain, so bossanova and trompe are the ones i reach for more these days.
turning it off after "motorway" -- you've only got two minutes to go! and i like the playfulness of "navajo know"

I usually sort of forget that it's there though.

Trompe le Monde is my favourite Pixies album, haters = crazy. Though as I said upthread I wasn't there at the time, so maybe favouring the widescreen epic (ugh) over the pow-bang-rush is a luxury of not having been there at the time to build up an image of the band and be disappointed over the course of several years, of course.

yeah, i got into the pixies pretty much right after they broke up, so all of the albums were treats, didn't have the chance to be "disappointed" by any of them.

I've never listened to planet of sound I don't think

navajo knows ruins the ending of a perfect album

Seriously, all these albums are so full of so many good ideas. I remember another story of the record label taking issue with the songs on the last album being so short, and Black Francis basically handing them back a Buddy Holly best of and noting how if all of the songs on there were 2.5 minutes, then it was OK if his were, too.

I've never listened to planet of sound I don't think

navajo knows ruins the ending of a perfect album

Wait, what?

oh wait I thought planet of sound was an album

that was a poorly-formed "post" on my part, sorry

oh I see - in my mind 'planet of sound' was an imaginary pixies album that had the bossanova cover art because it looks like a planet, do you see

i dunno, i'm a big fan of those first two Frank Black albums, and "navajo know" is a nice lead-in to that style.

the way the piano fades out on motorway to roswell with two piano tracks is so perfect, save navajo know for an album opener then imo

never!
it's ok, we can agree to disagree.

you guys started talking about Frank Black and now Speedy Marie is racing thru my head <3

I started a thread once

Albums with a genius penultimate track, and sucky final track

good lord what is my govt name doing there

haha I was about to post Protection on that thread... AGAIN

Trompe le Monde is my favourite Pixies album, haters = crazy.

OTM. I got into the Pixies after Bossa Nova, and when Trompe Le Monde came out I fell in love with it immediately. It's been my favorite of theirs ever since.

In 1991 I remember thinking why would anyone listen to Nirvana when you have the Pixies?

I started at Doolittle (as I imagine many people did) and by the time TLM came out, it sounded really pop. Which is WAY better than sounding like adult contemporary with a slightly rough edge (All Shook Down), esp at the time. What was Bob Mould doing? Oh, just releasing the most depressed person album ever made (Black Sheets of Rain)

Pixies was still fun young people music, instead of being sad old people music (ie songs about divorce and being old)

That said, I p much never want to hear Doolittle more than once a decade from now on.

I recorded a radio show in April 1988 on the Dutch VPRO radio station when they first kinda started to explode in the the low countries and I wrote down what was in the charts at the time on the tape cover (I guess I had the feeling this new band was going to be important and it signalled the end of an era) - so this is what was in the charts over here in BE and NL when the Pixies first came over here:

Gimme hope Jo'anna - Eddy Grant
Stop loving you - Toto
Play it cool - Freiheit
Beds are burning - Midnight Oil
Don't turn around - Aswad
Tell it to my heart - Taylor Dayne
Yé ké yé ké - Mory Kante
Somewhere down the crazy river - Robbie Robertson
I need you - B.V.S.M.P.
Heart - Pet Shop Boys
One more try - George Michael
Wishing I was lucky - Wet Wet Wet
Can I play with madness - Iron Maiden
Alphabet Street - Prince

:-)

wow
kinda shocked!

and now compare that with the youthful Pixies charming the pants off everyone with the funnest music ever: Vamos, Broken Face, Isla De Encanta, Tony's Theme, Gigantic, Bone Machine, Something Against You, Ed Is Dead, Nimrod's Son, Where Is My Mind?, Levitate Me, Brick Is Red

Those are much more interesting choices for gateway songs -- i was reliant on the public library and local public radio station to inform me beyond what i found on newsstands and commercial radio (ie not much). As I mentioned, Here Comes Your Man was the song that I heard first because I heard it on 89.1 (local radio, not NPR) and then I pursued from there.

I got into The Pixies because someone played "I've Been Tired" for me on a bus ride back from German camp and I immediately decided to buy one of their albums; since I couldn't remember the name of the song or what release it was on, I just bought Doolittle.

would like to note that meanwhile, pants were being charmed off (occasionally), as many in my peer group heard "la la love you" on the mixtape that skater/weirdo/older/nerdy guy they met at the amusement park gave them
fess up now if you were that guy

This is pretty much the first live song I ever heard from them (I had heard some Come On Pilgrim tracks on the radio before, but not live)

http://rapidshare.com/files/857629830/01_-_intro___vamos.mp3 (from that April 1988 Dutch FM radio show & audio cassette)

haha I put "La La Love You" on several mixtapes

although I was much more likely to go with "Dead"

"Dead" a much better choice

My go-tos were "Dead", "La La Love You", "Silver" and "Gouge Away"

For the longest time I had a cassette copy of "Surfer Rosa" and "Come On Pilgrim" that a friend made for me - this was pre-"Doolittle" - and it wasn't until years later that I bought a copy of the album proper and realized he had cut off "Where Is My Mind?" for space. (This was before you were guaranteed to hear the Pixies all over the place).

I remember sending my brother a C90 tape with Doolittle on one side and Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub on the other.

A C60 cassette tape made by a guy I met on summer holiday was my first acquaintance with the Pixies and it blew my mind. The same guy also taped dEUS' 'Worst Case Scenario' for me, mind was equally blown. I always think of Spain therefore, when hearing either of the two.

I started at Doolittle (as I imagine many people did) and by the time TLM came out, it sounded really pop.

Do you mean that Doolittle sounded really pop, or Trompe le Monde?