One of the greatest rock albums of all-time. In the States they didn't realise for a long time how amazing this band from Boston was. It was the same with the Wipers almost ten years before. Concerning Giant Sand, Swell or Idaho it is even worse: they never got those. Maybe American ears are not made for ingenious American music. Whatever. Charles Thompson IV aka Black Francis aka Frank Black must have come from a black hole in a galaxy a million light years away. Born in sunny Long Beach in CA in 1965 he formed the Pixies in 1986. Kim Deal who had just started playing the bass answered an ad by Thompson looking for a bassist liking Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul & Mary. Via the drummer of the Throwing Muses the Pixies got a contract with 4AD. The British label of ethereal otherworldly music. Not exactly how I would call their unpredictable blend of punk, indie rock and surf pop with a penchant for Spanish lyrics.

how could i forget about their brilliant music? the simple infectious magnificent bass lines of kim deal. joey santiago's guitar squalls. black francis voice ranging from falsetto to david thomas scream to lou reed's coolness. they were the roxy music of around 1990. every song had at least three different songs in it. hardly any one was longer than three minutes. they had the gift of melody and punk of the buzzcocks.

debaser opens the surreal circle of noisy pop. when kim deal joins in black francis heavy breathing on tame: je t'aime moi non plus seemed to have been for puffs in comparison to those perfectly synchronous sex sounds. the energy. the intensity. david lovering's drums in the vein of maureen tucker. throwaway but effective. wave of mutilation is more standard anthemic rock music-wise. not everybody drives his car into the ocean and rides away on a wave of mutilation though. i bleed is the first climax. a slow start with the bassline. guitar squeaks come in. restrain. total self-abandonment. here comes your man is the sunny side of life. a gorgeous almost countryish melody. dead does not betray its title. abrasive. more like their first two releases. difficult to love. a cooler song follows. this monkey's gone o heaven. 5-6-7. number mysticism. mr grieves is weird. starts like a kind of reggae but it changes to something else. falling apart and holding together like every good pixies song. the infernality and speed of crackity jones. and on la la la love you lovering sings so much better than ringo starr. what a nice whistling song. number 13 baby (if someone's interested this is the mp3 i would put up) is knocking me out. i am there on the floor, the referree is counting me out and i love it. what a beautiful way to go down. there goes my gun sounds like a song of a drunken sailor. hey is reviving my spirits. the singing on silver sucks but there is kim's slide guitar and joey's guitar fuzz. gouge away mentions marihuana and kim sings "la la la". enough to be utterly classic. altogether the best road and drinking music around. i haven't tried it for sex but it can't be bad in this setting. the better party album would have been mlah though, i guess.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXVII was this post.

... link