Album of the Week: Pixies- Surfer Rosa

One of my fondest memories is a road trip some friends and I took years ago. Being the music nerd that I am, I had a huge leather wallet of CDs in the car with us and after much discussion we put Surfer Rosa on. Grinning in the ecstasy of youth and freedom that is a male road trip, we were singing along and joking around throughout the entire thing, every song met with "god, I love this album" comments and fist pumping. Air guitars may have been employed. I relate this story to you because, when you get beyond all talk of Surfer Rosa being influential and "important", you are left with a damn fine album that is a blast to listen to.

The Pixies were and remain a band for music nerds and critics. Though the grunge/alt rock groups that they inspired would go on to become massive stars and millionaires in the 90s, the Pixies have never been a band like that. Successful, yes. Beloved, yes. But--and this may be presumptuous to say--they belong to music nerds and critics. The subject matter of their songs is simply too odd and creepy, the music too noisy and unhinged to ever appeal to a mass market audience. If you went to high school anytime from the late 80s onward and you were the weird kid in class who wasn't satisfied with the music that was popular amongst your peers, chances are good you found the Pixies. Dropping the needle on (or pressing play) your first Pixies album is a revelation the likes of which you usually only hear about in religious circumstances. Oh, to be able to hear 'Debaser' for the first time again...

But that song comes from Doolittle, and I'm trying to discuss Surfer Rosa. The genius of what the Pixies did, first with Come On Pilgrim and fully realized here, was to play with the dynamics that had always been in place in rock music. What I mean is, loud/soft and noisy/clean. It's a very basic formula--one which Kurt Cobain famously admitted to ripping off wholesale from the Pixies--but one that pays incredible dividends: witness the rush of opener 'Bone Machine', which builds to a peak before the "your bone's got a little machine" lyric kills the sound and then the guitars come slashing back in. Witness 'Something Against You', which opens with a clean rhythm guitar before the distorted lead guitar blasts the door down and Black Francis howls in anger through what sounds like a bullhorn. Witness 'Gigantic', which opens so delicately and showcases the power of loud/quiet and clean/noisy dynamics.

At just a touch over a half hour in length, Surfer Rosa's every moment is excellent and worthwhile. Nothing is carelessly put on the album just to pad out the runtime--even the studio banter is classic amongst a certain friend and I. Hell, even the silly 'Tony's Theme' is great though it is my least favorite song on the album. And that's the crux of the album to me: it's just so enjoyable and so much fun to listen to. I frequently cite Surfer Rosa in reviews as an example of something that I find addictive and compulsively listenable. Due to its brevity and consistency, it's hard not to put it on when I can't decide what I want to listen to or, say, when I'm scrolling through iTunes and trying to come up with a review to write. I'm just sayin'.

I could talk about all those ancillary things about the album--Steve Albini's production, the perverse but catchy lyrics, the way it influenced indie rock bands to have a token girl often as a bassist--but like I said at the beginning, if you push all that aside you'll be left with not just one of the best indie rock albums or one of the best rock albums, but one of the best albums of all time, period. Yes, Surfer Rosa is that good. Go listen to it again; your awkward, strange younger self will thank you.