From “Surfer Rosa” to “The Night The Zombies Came”: The Pixies album ranking explains which records are essential – and which you can safely skip.
This band has two careers. In the eighties and nineties she was one of the drivers and enablers of alternative rock. Then she paused. Since 2014, she has been regularly throwing rock songs at us that may be less earth-shattering, but still bring joy. These are the Pixies’ best albums.
GIGANTIC
Surfer Pink (1988)
The most beautiful bassline in indie rock history opens this album. He is stoic, rushing forward and something like the structure provider of a song that otherwise remains informal. That’s the band’s core competence on this album, excellently produced by Steve Albini: chaos and order collide. Ideally, this results in hits like “Gigantic” or “Where Is My Mind?” But the album works best as a musical body of work that anticipates much of what would happen in US rock over the next five years.
Six stars
Doolittle (1989)
Explosions. But full of euphoria. It’s understandable that one of Sweden’s most famous indie clubs was named after “Debaser”, one of the hits from the album. It’s also understandable that the album appeared in numerous best lists: the dynamics of its predecessor have been perfected here once again. The 1990s may be starting here. Anyone who compares the song structures with those of Nirvana will notice that grunge also begins here, although a few hundred grams of euphoria are still incorporated. For the sake of completeness, it should be mentioned that “Here Comes Your Man”, a pure pop number, has snuck into the tracklist.
Six stars
Bossanova (1990)
What do you do after two such blasts? The opener “Cecilia Ann” gives the first answer with its Western dynamics: you march forward. The second track gives the second answer: you play “rock music”. Perhaps this is the most conventional of the early Pixies albums – although there are a few footnotes to be added. “Is She Weird” features refrigerator-cold bass and guitars as well as an exalted Black Francis. And “Hang Wire” sounds like a soda bottle that’s been shaken too long.
Four and a half stars
Trompe Le Monde (1991)
What is already noticeable in the opener: The bass, once one of the band’s assets, is mixed way back, as are David Lovering’s drums. The guitars set the tone – in songs that are rougher than last and show little interest in accessibility. Nevertheless, tracks like “U-Mass” or “Letter To Memphis” sound quite catchy because the stubbornness of the song structures that characterized the previous albums has been reduced. This may have been due to the beginning of the triumph of alternative rock on MTV and Co. It is also possible that the fractures that existed in the band from the beginning led to Black Francis writing the album more or less alone. Two years later the band broke up, only to return as a live act eleven years later.
Five stars
Indie Cindy (2014)
One can debate whether this album – strictly speaking a collection of the three comeback EPs – belongs on a list of the great classics from the 1990s. It doesn’t have their clout: not musically, and certainly not culturally. And of course Kim Deal, who left before the recordings, is missing not only musically, but also as a counterpoint. But where “Indie Cindy” was a welcome greeting from the kitchen of indie rock at the time, today it proves to be an astonishingly well-aged compendium of hits: the title track creeps into the ear with a dusty, Pavement-like nonchalance, while “What Goes Boom” rushes forward impetuously.
Five stars
SILVER BULLETS
Come On Pilgrim (1987)
Black Francis takes his voice for a stroll, from lucid beauty to the shrieked abyss. Kim Deal is not yet very prominent with her bass, but gives some songs a second level with her background vocals. And Joey Santiago shows what you can do with the guitar. An EP-turned-exhibition park that adds more than a few footnotes to the typical college rock of the US East Coast of those years. And honestly, is there a better line to shout out loud than “You are the son of a motherfucker” from the dusty “Nimrod’s Son”?
Four stars
Beneath The Eyrie (2019)
The third album of the second period oscillates somewhere between sermon and witching hour. The band is more of a feeler; Nobody has to prove that they can speak loudly and quietly anymore. Paz Lenchantin’s bass can tell more again, and Black Francis seems as if he has finally made friends with his obsessions – although he presents them less nervously than before. He sounds more like someone who has told his favorite stories for the hundredth time and still likes them. This creates a mood that is defined less by breaks than by the feeling that a band is aging gracefully without caring much whether anyone notices.
Four stars
Doggerel (2022)
The witching hour has just been discussed. The Pixies have memorialized the place on this album. “Haunted House”, with its slight cowpunk touch and its joy in the beautiful melody, represents a band that no longer stumbles, but rather goes slightly awry – but always forward. You can complain about that. But you can also enjoy the fact that “Get Simulated” takes you straight back to the old “Doolittle” days.
Four stars
DIG FOR FIRE
Head Carrier (2016)
The first album with bassist Paz Lenchantin. She can’t help it if it’s a bit boring – the “All I Think About Now” she wrote is not only a nod to the band’s history (listen to that guitar riff!), but also the best song on the album. Unfortunately, the remaining pieces leave less of an impression. As nice as the little “Plaster Of Paris” may be in the direction of twee, as nice as the riff in “Oona” seems: there is little that sticks.
Three stars
The Night The Zombies Came (2024)
This album sounds well-rounded, all of a piece, and happily oscillates between Americana and indie rock. The word “clarified” points in the right direction, but falls short – because of course the Pixies still hit a snag on this album. The most beautiful: the almost musical rocker “You’re So Impatient”, the impetuous “Oyster Beds” and the title track. By the way, Francis disappears in “European Neighborhoods, hooked on drugs and lost in the woods”. Will he come back? We wish it very much.
Three and a half stars
EDGE AREAS
During the Pixies’ absence, their former label 4AD diligently released compilations. Two things in particular are recommended: The band has made several guest appearances on British radio. First published in 1998 and significantly expanded in 2024, “At The BBC 1988-91” comes with, among other things, a wonderfully shot cover of the already wonderfully shot Beatles track “Wild Honey Pie” recorded by John Peel in 1988, as well as a nice session version of “Monkey Gone To Heaven”. What lies behind the “Complete ‘B’ Sides” should be self-explanatory – but it’s still worth listening. The fact that tracks like “Into The White” or “Manta Ray” didn’t make it onto albums says a lot about this band.