Pros: A great starter for getting into the Pixies.
Cons: A few great songs left out, some songs are hard to get into.
The Bottom Line: The Pixies are a band you need to know, and this is the best way to cover a lot of ground quickly. Prefer a regular album? Go with Doolittle.
goatboy72's Full Review: Death to the Pixies 1987-1991 by Pixies
There are certain bands that you're just supposed to know, but don't get heard through many popular media. These include the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, and the Pixies. Usually when I feel left behind like this I catch up using either a tribute album to that band, or one of their live releases. I usually shy away from greatest hits discs because the hits aren't always the songs that you need to know. Those songs usually come out in live sets or are thought to be notable enough to cover on a tribute album. Reasons I chose the greatest hits route with the Pixies include: finding this album for pretty cheap on eBay, it comes with a live album, and the Pixies weren't around for very long, so their catalog isn't very deep.
We'll look at this album as two separate entities, since the two discs aren't really related.
Greatest Hits is a fairly deceptive way to look at this collection, since the only Pixies song that has really endured as a hit is "Where is My Mind?", but I'm getting ahead of myself. I didn't initially intend to go track by track, as those reviews usually kind of bug me, but this album begs that treatment.
This album starts off with quite a bit of fury. The instrumental "Cecilia Ann" is a demented, late 80's take on surf guitar, with subtle keyboard and choral washes that give it somewhat of a Gothic cowboy vibe. "Planet of Sound" and "Tame" are brimming with both tension and release, the former coming in the tight bass and restrained vocals of the verses and the latter coming with screams and full-on guitars in the chorus. It's all that screaming that kept me skipping those tracks for a long time, actually. Frank Black (F.K.A. Black Francis) has a scream like none other, and I do enjoy it in places, but it was a little rough as an introduction to the band.
For me the album really started coming together at track four, "Here Comes Your Man." For a long time it was my favourite Pixies tune, and it's the song that got me started thinking that the Pixies just might be the world's greatest pop band. It is definitely poppiest of Pixies songs.
"Debaser" features whole lot of screaming as well, but it's so much more cultivated on this song than "Tame" or "Planet of Sound." There's so much more attention to constructing a quality song that maximizes the impact of Frank's trademark howling. Also, as a historical note, Kurt Cobain mentioned this song as a direct inspiration for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (listen to the opening bass line).
It's always seemed to my like the "UK Surf" version of "Wave of Mutilation," which is the one performed on the live disc, has received much more praise than its original version. I'm going to go ahead and say that this is a mistake. This version, the fast one, is quite simply more dynamic and better presented.
"Dig for Fire" (my current favourite) has a much different sound to it. "Dig" is a less traditional pop tune, musically it is almost *gasp* normal sounding, definitely catchy, while the lyrics are typical of Frank's surrealist imagery. It is also one of the best displays of Kim Deal's feathery backing vocal. It may not be the most bizarre, unique, or original Pixies songs, but it's a damn good song.
On "Caribou," the opener to the Pixies' debut EP Come on Pilgrim, the form is fairly free, allowing Joey Santiago to work his lead guitar magic. He has a way of using a single note to its fullest capacity, letting it hang over a verse, slightly in the background, like a creepy lurker. It also feature some of the strangest sounds ever to come from Frank Black's throat.
"The Holiday Song" and "Nimrod's Son" both share the motif of incest. The former is an engaging loud rocker with an instantly memorable riff, while the latter has frantic acoustic guitar strumming that's atypical of most Pixies stuff, and a really cool start/stop dynamic.
The award for best riff on the disc goes to "U-Mass." It's also notable for the way the drums drop into the song (it's sublime) and the little bass rumblings right before the chorus. There's also just enough cowbell for it to be taken seriously.
It's hard to apply words to "Bone Machine." The lyrics are mostly half-spoken disjointed narration, with a stiffly cadenced bridge leading into a subdued/manic chorus with a beautiful harmony between Frank and Kim, then Frank screaming. The way the track ends flows so perfectly into "Gigantic" that one would suspect, as I did, that the two songs were meant to be paired. It was quite a shock when I saw that they weren't performed back to back on the live disc, and weren't even together on Surfer Rosa.
"Gigantic" is the only Pixies album track where Kim Deal sings lead, since she wrote the song. That may also be why the bassline is so prominent in the mix, though that's not terribly unusual for a Pixies song.
If you haven't heard "Where Is My Mind?" that's really your own fault at this point, I shouldn't really have to say anything about it. (Hint: think the end of Fight Club.)
The album ends with three mid-tempo numbers ("Velouria,""Gouge Away" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven") that distinctly lack any howling (just a little on "Gouge Away") and much of more groundbreaking fair that we've passed through to get to this point. They are good songs, but not my favourites, and I really don't think it was a great way to end the disc. Fairly anti-climactic, whereas "Where Is My Mind?" seems tailor made to close the album, but that's just a question of sequencing.
I have much less to say about the Live Album, as I haven't listen to it as much. This is very odd for me, as I usually favour live recordings, but I just wasn't ready for live Pixies when I got it and it lay separated from disc one in my collection for a long time. Really it isn't bad, though it is quite raw. The advantage here is that, since the concert captured came mid-career, there are a lot of the songs that didn't make it to the career-spanning first disc. "Broken Face," "Allison," "Into the White" (another Kim Deal number), "Vamos" and "Hey" are among the choice tunes you don't get on the other disc. It's loud, fast, raw Pixies, which you'll appreciate more once you've gotten a little handle on the band.
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