390. Pixies, "Surfer Rosa"

 

I know this album was formative for many of my indie rock coming-of-age-in-the-80's peers but I was always more of a Doolittle person.  Nevertheless, upon relisten, this album is still hard as fuck and interesting as ever.  The first thing that hits you is the HUGE, booming drum sounds that underlie, or maybe overlie, every song.  Does it sound like they were recorded in a huge industrial bathroom in a factory?  They were.  There are the screeching buzzsaw guitars and Black Francis' yelping wail, which sounds like it was recorded from the bottom of a well, or maybe a prison cell.  You all know "Gigantic" and "Where Is My Mind?" but the real sound of this album is exemplified by "Oh My Golly!"

There's a lot going on here.  When they recorded this, the band really didn't know much about music, and freed of the constraints of expectations, they could just go fucking wild and do whatever popped into their heads.  Steve Albini, Legendary Producer (who got paid $1500 flat to make this album, no royalties), said "They were making music along unconventional lines partly out of ignorance, but I mean ‘ignorance’ in a flattering sense."  Almost out of nowhere, Pixies developed the loud-quiet-loud dynamic that influence countless bands in the future.  Like, say, Nirvana.

Speaking of "Gigantic," it's one of those times where the biggest song from an album isn't really representative of the album entirely.  Sung by Kim Deal in a weary, seen-it-all drawl, it's melodic and hooky in a way a lot of the rest of the album isn't.  

The lyrics on this record are often dark, but, as has been pointed out before, they're not coming from actual darkness, but rather Francis' idea of darkness.  They seem like an act, not like a real expression.  When Merle Haggard sang "I turned 21 in prison/doing life without parole," he had actually been to prison.  When Black Francis sings in "Cactus" about being in jail and wanting a woman to send him her dress covered in her blood, it's a striking Gothic image, but you don't think for a second Francis was locked up.  No matter, though.  The art prevails.  The album is great.  We all go home happy, or disturbed, I guess.  If you weren't suffering from teen angst before you listened to it, you are now.