Pixies

Surfer Rosa
4AD, 1988

So, the Pixies are finally here. If you've never bothered to investigate the band beyond the beads of spit launched from salivating indie groups whenever their name is mentioned, this column is for you. The Pixies got together in Boston in 1985, released four now-famous albums and then broke up in 1993, before making it to Australian shores. They reformed in 2004 and are this week touring down under for the first time.

The band recorded a slew of perfect pop singles during their career – including 'Monkey Gone To Heaven', 'Here Comes Your Man' and 'Alec Eiffel' – which never made it into the top ten. They were far better-liked in the UK, where their most popular album, Bossanova, reached #3 in the sales charts compared to #70 in the US. But the Pixies' influence on successive groups far outweighed their commercial viability. After they broke up, most people credited them with pioneering alternative rock. Even Kurt Cobain described Nirvana's signature track 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' as a blatant Pixies rip-off.

Dedicated fans generally cherish the Pixies' first album Surfer Rosa the most. It has the fewest singles and the most oomph. The first few seconds of opener 'Bone Machine' seem so mundane almost twenty years later – like any bunch of teenagers practising in a garage – until Frank Black's rambling monologue kicks in. "You're so pretty when you're faithful to me!" he sing-speaks, and then just... gibberish. When the band take off, it sounds like the first time someone figured out what to do with guitars and a drum-kit. The songs hurtle by until cult favourite 'Gigantic', a slower, quiet-loud-quiet pop song with a great groove and lead vocals from bassist Kim Deal, who started her own group The Breeders a few years later. It's the type of pop music that's so fresh with energy and ideas (even now), that you wish you could hear it again for the first time. It's no exaggeration to describe them as one of the best bands of the twentieth century... just try to keep the mouth-frothing to a minimum.