PIXIES
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Evan Williams <Evan.Williams@mailbox.uq.edu.au> (12.12.2002)
Hi george, Ahh...Gigantic. What a song . Grunge music summed up in 4 minutes. The soft bit , the loud bit , the exploding guitar bit. Perfect bass line, Kim is a wonderful bass player . You can see this song in lots of others that follw , 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' thru to 'Song 2' by Blur ,what 10 years later? And being about John Holmes as well makes it just that little bit more special!
David Dickson <ddickson@rice.edu> (13.04.2004)
I have a request to make. Please, will someone out there explain to me for the jillionth time how the fuck I am supposed to ENJOY this stuff. It sounds like a bunch of college nerds who picked up instruments one day, learned how to play them in 20 minutes, and then mixed whatever the hell came into their "literary," "post-modern" minds into an LP that was probably recorded in two hours in front of a laundry machine in their dorm basement, with the help of some very strong Cuban weed and a complete disregard for the tenets of listenability. Classic? Best album of the 1980's? Beatles quality? What the fuck, guys. What the fuck.
Not that I have anything against people who ADORE it (all of them band geeks-- coincidence? Probably no), but I've heard Creed albums better than this. Hell, I've heard CHICAGO albums better than this. And this is supposed to be the "cornerstone" of alternative rock. Hell, it doesn't even sound that revolutionary. What exactly did it inspire? Alice in Chain's feverish nightmares? A sad 4 out of 10 from me--and only because "Where is My Mind" is actually listenable.
Adam Bruneau <oliver5200@hotmail.com> (11.12.2002)
Wow. You really nailed it with this album review. I remember when I was 17 years old, I had gone through my Beatles phase, I had gone through my 60s pop phase, and I was just starting to get into The Flaming Lips with Zaireeka and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. And one day at a record store I bought this due to Mark Prindle's online recommendation and it was a revalation. The record itself is rarely amongst my most-played Pixies albums (that has to lie to the sheer crismon-noise beauty of Bossanova) but that's probably because being the first one I ever heard, I listened to it waaaay too much for it to be effective anymore. But this review was perfect, as I read, it felt like I was 17 again, like I had just realized that Frank Black's soft pop voice in "Debaser" was growing more and more loud and more and more insane over the course of the song, until the chorus is barely even recognizable. Anyways, thanks, glad to hear you love the record, and excuse me, I think I'm going to look for my CD.....
Eric Kleinbrink <ekleinbrink@yahoo.com> (19.04.2003)
A great record from a great band that most people aren't familiar with...such a shame. Almost 15 years old and it STILL sounds fresh. This record sounds like it could've been made two weeks ago. Each song has it's own personality, and, each song is great. George... I highly recommend their next two records: Bossanova and Trompe La Monde. These are great too... and , they both sound SO different from each other. As for Doolittle, each song is great. My favorites are: 'No. 13 Baby', 'Mr. Grieves', 'Gouge Away', 'Wave of Mutilation', and 'Here Comes Your Man'. Was there a band cooler than the Pixies??
David Dickson <ddickson@rice.edu> (26.04.2004)
Yes. There was a band cooler than the Pixies. Everyone else.
Seriously, this album is silly dissonant unlistenable wacky bullshit crap. Why the hell so many people call it the best rock album of the last twenty years is completely beyond me. I am totally, overwhelmingly, and wholeheartedly BAFFLED by the acclaim these guys have gotten over the last five years. Side note: Fight Club, which featured "Where is My Mind" during the closing credits, was released in theaters five years ago. Coincidence? Probably no. As you can probably tell by now, the Pixies are my least favorite band ever. They are worse than Chicago, and that's pretty damn bad. They are wacky for no reason, avant garde for God knows why, and held up as the forerunners of grunge for ultra-classified purposes that will probably be revealed when rock critics overthrow the UN and take over the world, banning progressive rock, arena rock, and non-60's pop from the airwaves for all time. Seriously, I hate hate HATE this band. Never want to hear them or hear OF them again. And here are a few of the reasons why: 1.) Every nut in College Nerdville says that Nirvana is nothing but a "Pixies rip-off". SINCE WHEN?? What have you been smoking? In what way, shape, or form do Kurt Cobain and Black Francis resemble one another, in look, sound, style, lyric, or pitch? Could you imagine Chris Novoselic singing about a superhero named Tony?? 2.) Doolittle. One of the most overrated albums in the universe, bar none. Kiss my ass, England. Sending this album into the top ten was one of the biggest mistakes your nation ever made. The only worse one was building the Millenium Dome. :) 3.) Surfer Rosa. The LP that conclusively proves that critics are from the moon. Q magazine actually dubbed this "Album of the Year" in 1988. Asking why that happened is like asking Cheney who was on his Energy Task Force-- it's something no one will ever know. Abrasive vignettes, off-key singing by Black, Deal acting like a band nerd during a showing of The Cabbage Patch Kids, the whole band whacking away as if they just discovered their instruments in their dorm room for the first time, cackling Spanish being substituted for actual lyrics, and "Brick is Red" as the last song. "BRICK IS RED", for the love of Christ. The Best LP of 1988. Huh. Right. Must've been a shitty year. 4.) "Tony's Theme." Good GOD, what an annoying song. 5.) Black CAN sing well. He's got the gift. But rather than using it, he INTENTIONALLY caterwauls away like David Byrne on shrooms. Yuck. 6.) They're nerds. 7.) They're one of the "most influential" bands of the late '80's, and therefore everyone HAS to like them. Especially if you're in college. If you don't, you're a s#@!-throwing, corporate loving, globalist pig who likes to eat his own feces. And you're probably a Nazi, too. 8.) They think they're funny. They're not. ALL THAT SAID. . . . . . I give this album a 5 out of 10. As much as I hate to admit it, there ARE five songs on it ("Debaser", "Here Comes Your Man", "Gouge Away", "No. 13 Baby", "Hey") that manage to Not Suck. The rest can be consigned to the static wastebin of '80's underground wacky detritus. God, what an overrated album. What an overrated band. And to think my Soviet politics professor was a groupie in 1990. Ick. Sorry for this lengthy rant. It was spurred on by a physics major who called me a "brainwashed, uneducated retard" for liking Shania Twain. He ain't laughin' no more, I can tell you that. I just destroyed his favorite band. :)Grebo 69 <grebo69@hotmail.com> (26.08.2004)
Dear Mr Dickson, You are a conceited arrogant near-sighted little geek who has no idea of recent musical history. Nirvana were most definitely a Pixies rip off and it was admitted by Mr Cobain so frequently that I can’t believe you have never heard of this. The Pixies were never “wacky” (They Might Be Giants are wacky) – they were the most awesome live band I ever saw and managed to combine the loud-quiet grunge stereotype for the first time in their songs that was subsequently copied first by Nirvana and then by just about everybody in the western world who picked up a guitar in the early nineties.
You ain’t destroyed anyone’s favourite band by your unimaginative rant. All you’ve done is show up what a lack of musical vision you have. And then to wrap it up you admit to liking SHANIA TWAIN!!!! You are a brainwashed, uneducated retard! And yes I am English. And thank god we did send Doolittle into the Top 10. So you can kiss my arse! By the way 'Debaser' is not just meaningless waffle but a take on the films of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, particularly Un Chien Andalou in which a donkey’s eyeball does indeed get sliced up.
Niv <nikus80@hotmail.com> (01.09.2004)
I really like 'Rock Music'. Like many pixies tracks, it becomes amusingly catchy when you listen it a few times. sometimes I try to sing it, even if it is hard. nice album overall.
David Dickson <ddickson@rice.edu> (14.06.2005)
sarcasm (sar'kaz'em) n. 1. A sharply mocking or contemptuous remark, typically utilizing statements or implications pointedly opposite or irrelevant to the underlying purport. 2. The quality of such remarks. 3. The use of such remarks. [French sarcasme, from Greek kasmos, from sarkazein, "to tear flesh," bite the lips in rage, speak bitterly, from sarx (stem sark-), flesh]
Sigh. Another tired predictable this-comment-merely-shows-how-little-you- understand-Real-Music flame from a Pixies fan. Y'know, if you were trying to demonstrate that hardcore Pixies followers are NOT fanatical humorless crazy people, you failed miserably. Which just proves my point--if you don't consider this band the peak of Western civilization in the Reagan '80's, according to its faithful, you're a Nazi. Come on, people. Live a little. Black Francis wouldn't want it that way. But to the flamer above, just for your benefit, whenever I gratuitously tell an entire nation to kiss my "arse," as it were, please refer to the Webster definition above. I mean, I don't want you to burst a blood vessel on my account. Seriously. A sense of humor is the spice of life, friend! Oh yeah, Bossanova. Okay, there WAS probably a worse band than the Pixies. Because this album is actually pretty good! Lots of good songs ("All Over the World," "Is She Weird," "Dig for Fire," the song after "Dig for Fire," and "Rock Music" being the best of the bunch), nice production, a refreshing dearth of jokey goofballness (although it's still there in minute amounts)-- and best of all, what the other albums didn't have: flow and unity. And even better; for the first time, you can believe that this band indeed had a major influence on the likes of Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. If "Rock Music" doesn't embody the whole early punk-grunge credo in two furious minutes, I don't know what the hell does. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if Black Francis had just thrown a LITTLE more diversity into the final four songs, I wouldn't hesitate at all to give it the perfect 10. As it is, it's just an eight and a half for me. Go Pixies.