Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Break my body, December 29, 2003
By A Customer
You know how your dad stopped listening to new music in 1972 or so after he got all those Beatles, Aretha, Neil Young, Marvin Gaye, Stones, and early Zeppelin albums? He knew that Bad Company and Foreigner didn't have anything to add. Lots of intelligent people quit buying records for a while after this band broke up. The Pixies were a highwater mark that college rock still looks up to -- melodic genius drenched in bone-breaking noise. "Surfer Rosa" rocks like Meet the Pixies. This CD gives you the excellent 8-song EP "Come On Pilgrim," which includes the sublimely beautiful "Caribou" and seven other tooth-loosening hits. "Surfer Rosa" is brilliant from end to end -- I caught my refrigerator repairman singing along to "River Euphrates." "Cactus" and "I'm Amazed" are bedrock. And "Brick is Red" is my secret favorite -- an incomprehensible sing-song.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'm a humble guy/with healthy desires..., June 1, 2005
Surfer Rosa must be one of the greatest alternative rock albums ever recorded. Its abrasiveness takes a bit of getting used to, but once you're over the hurdle, it's an exhilarating album. The Pixies had everything a rock band could possibly want- their music is a thrilling adrenaline-fuelled ride- a perfect blend of melody and noise, characterised by a free-wheeling eclecticism, a much-imitated sound of lurching rythmical dynamics and, to top it all, a crazy front man with inspired lyrics. Steve Albini's production is equally impressive- the snare drums crack and the guitars fizz (they were recorded in a toilet cubicle!)- giving the album an irresistible energy.
Come On Pilgrim lacks the punch of Surfer Rosa, and isn't as well recorded, but its worth having for Caribou, Ed is Dead and I've Been Tired, for its amusing lyrics ("I said I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed/I like Lou Reed/she said, sticking her tongue in my ear..")
It amazes me when people laud albums like White Light/White Heat, Loveless and Daydream Nation, when this album clearly wipes the floor with all of them. It's even got a classic sleeve, with some gratuitous female nudity and a surrealism-inspired guitar head protruding from the wall. What more do you want?
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the pixies at their very best, July 5, 1998
By A Customer
Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim together represent a critical distillation of the most interesting aspects of American punk-rock-pop in the 1980s. With precedents ranging from the Velvet Underground through to Leonard Cohen and less familiar points of reference (Peter, Paul and Mary; Mexican pop music; UFO conspiracy theories), the Pixies proved to be (alongside the Talking Heads, Tribe Called Quest, Violent Femmes and bands like Sonic Youth) the most genuinely original music in a sea of utterly indifferent American noise/bilge - catchy tunes buried under mounds of buzzing, screaching guitar, dead-simple bass lines, rackety vocals, and woven together with (by turns) ominous and hilarious words, ungratuitously gratuious.
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