Essential
Pixies: Bossanova (1990)
An ode to two themes american pop culture: surfing and UFOs. Melancholic beach songs because Black Francis, like Beach Boy Brian Wilson, reported adventures, but neither experienced them themselves. The others swam, Francis sat in the sand with the guitar – so he had more time to think. Sang about saucers in Area 51 and a magical doll named Velouria who lives in the woods. “As if psychopaths were composing songs for a B-movie from the 50s,” said Blur guitarist Graham Coxon. A pairing of incredible heaviness (“Rock Music”) with watery melodies (“Ana”), which guitarist Joey Sant-iago plays as tenderly as if he had never hurt anyone. It was his finest hour, Santiago was Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. With “Cecilia Ann,” originally by the Surftones, Pixies took surf music back four years before Tarantino and “Pulp Fiction.” into pop.
Pixies: Doolittle (1989)
“Monkey Gone To Heaven” announced the spiritual hierarchy: “If man is five and the Devil is six, then God is seven.” “You can’t go wrong with the Old Testament,” said Francis, and of course he was yawing after the brutality in the Bible. He screamed for Samson and Delilah in “Gouge Away,” for David and Bathsheba in “Dead.” If necessary, he wanted to demand sex by force: “Tame,” sung with Kim Deal, sounds like an assault. “Doolittle” also marked the breakthrough because of its pop quality: “Wave Of Mutilation” offered melodies for three more songs.
Pixies: Trompe Le Monde (1991)
Considered to be Black Francis’ solo album because Kim Deal as a vocalist only contributed “Ohs” and “Ahs” – she wasn’t allowed to sing “Bird Dream Of The Olympus Mons” (song title of the year?). A history book about native myths (“The Navajo Know”) and the fear of an invasion of the continent by aliens – when the whites once entered their land as conquerors themselves: “Motorway To Roswell”. This last triumph for the time being appeared at the same time “Nevermind”, “Ten”, “Use Your Illusion I + II”, “The Low End Theory” and “Blood Sugar Sex Magick” – and went under.
Pixies: Surfer Pink (1988)
On the cover a bare-breasted dancer, a torn curtain, a crucifix: sexuality and religion, urges and feelings of guilt. Black Francis, 22, shouts out the double burden. He believes in God, he wants sex, but everything hurts: “Break My Body”, “Broken Face”, the vagina as “Bone Machine”. Kim Deal laughs about it and parodies him and his sexism in “Gigantic,” a song about penis length. 13 pieces full of absurdities, connected by audiobook-like dialogue lines of horror (“I told you fucking die”) and self-irony (“There were rumors he was into field hockey players”).
Rewarding
Frank Black: Teenager Of The Year (1994)
Black composed a story based on Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles” of the “Go West” colonization of the Red Planet by humans – only in reverse: the discovery of America from an alien perspective. He seeks home in these new infrastructures that exceed our comprehension – “(I Want To Live On An) Abstract Plain” – and longs for an escape to the Pacific atoll of the future: “The islands of Phoenix in 2016”; “Olé Mulholland” paid homage to the engineer William Mulholland, who once supplied LA with water. At the beginning the question is why we believe in higher intelligence, but have forgotten our own history, the first computer game: “Whatever Happened To Pong?”
Pixies: Come On Pilgrim (1987)
The first EP as the birth of the Loud-Quiet-Loud song pattern. Actually it should be called Quiet-Loud-Quiet: verse quiet, chorus shouted. Later, however, it wasn’t the Pixies who made a career out of it, but rather their students Nirvana. The masturbation paean “The Holiday Song” was rather a confession of sexual failure: “Here I am with my hand.”
Later, Francis sings “Losing my penis to a whore with disease,” followed by “just kidding” – and then: “Losing my life to a horrible disease.” “Whore” and “horri-ble”: He could joke about slips of the tongue , as much as he wanted – the fear of female sexuality became his motivation. There’s no question that Black Francis stirred up the anti-sexist camp of college rock back then.
Frank Black: Frank Black (1993)
With his solo debut, Black Francis, who now called himself Frank Black, demonstrated unique instincts. Still before “Pet Sounds” When the Beach Boys became hip again in the 90s, he covered their “Hang On To Your Ego”. From “I Heard Ramona Sing”, a declaration of love to the Ramones, pure basic trust in childhood idols speaks in perfect plain language: “I had so many problems/ And then I got me a Walkman/ I really liked it a lot, and/ They walked right in and they solved them.” The record was advertised as “Death to the Pixies”, but it is a single yes: to music history, but also to the departure into role-playing – the booklet shows him as Fu Manchu, FBI agent and dungaree farmers.
Supplementary
The Breeders: Pod (1990)
The band’s debut album by Kim Deal and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly received almost as good reviews as the one released the same year “Bossanova” the Pixies. But here Deal was finally able to bring in all of her lyrics and talents and also sing all the charmingly stoned and psychedelic, rumbly songs. It was an emancipation and the beginning of the end for the Pixies.
Frank Black: Frank Black Francis (2004)
Weak
Pixies: Indie Cindy (2014)
Francis himself says that he now uses the Pixies as a vehicle for his solo music, which is now focused on traditional R&B. Nothing here seems to have been worked out together. A bassist named “Ding” has to sing on “Bagboy” like the distant Deal, i.e. like a woman. On “Blue Eyed -Hexe” Francis roars like a poor man’s Brian Johnson, the title song says: “You put the cock in cocktail, man!” Okay, as a self-parody that’s great.
Movie
Steven Cantor, Matthew Galkin: “LoudQuietLoud”
The comeback documentary reveals continuity in the relationship of power: one boss, three employees. What is shocking to see is not Black Francis with his bare torso in front of the mirror, but rather the crash of drummer David Lovering after the death of his father. Francis rages at him on stage: “Are you high?”
Precious items
Cover songs & rares
“Boom Chicka Boom!”
Available as a live session recording, a studio version of the 1986 song does not exist. The melody was included in “Blue Eyed Hexe” (2014).
“Brackish Boy”
The Pixies’ only unreleased song before their breakup. 39 seconds are on YouTube, an acoustic version is on “Frank Black”.
“I Can’t Forget”
The Leonard Cohen cover appeared on the sampler in 1991 “I’m Your Fan”, alongside contributions from REM, Nick Cave and John Cale. The most prominent anthology slot of her career.
“Surf Epic”
Black’s most beautiful solo composition was only released as the B-side of “Hang On To Your Ego”, probably because of its length (10:12 min).
“Velvety”
The only Pixies song that Frank Black subsequently added a vocal to (can be heard on “Devil’s Workshop”).
“The Last Stand Of Shazeb Andleeb”
Five students killed Andleeb, a 17-year-old Pakistani, on a campus in LA. Black dedicates an anthem against hate crimes to him – he is rarely so concretely political. climax of “The Cult Of Ray”album from 1996.
“Bam Thwok”
Deal’s last Pixies vocal contribution, but as a solo vocalist. Gave the band their only number 1 – in the very first British iTunes charts in 2004. The organ solo comes from Santiago’s father-in-law, who worked as a missionary in the Philippines.
“A Strange Day”
Grand Duchy was the name of Black and his wife Violet Clark’s band – their most striking output is this hypnotic Cure cover.
“Gimme Danger”
The Stooges cover from 2007 as an example of how much the late Black was addicted to pig rock. More bar stool than electric chair.
“Women Of War”
By “Indie Cindy”-Outtake, Francis clumsily works on his image of women: “I would do your cooking, while you’re fighting on the fronts.”