Thompson, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering well deserved their payday. But they were also returning to claim a big slice of the rock-history pie, one that had long been out of reach. As the Pixies, they have had a most unusual career. The archetypical college band, they were a not-quite-next-big-thing who played sold-out gigs everywhere they went and were festooned with critical praise, but were aborted while still young and still far from the top of the charts. Then a weird thing happened. Throughout the 1990s their posthumous legend grew and grew, and they emerged as one of the most admired and namechecked bands of the decade of alternative rock. They became gods in absentia.
With modest but steady record sales and a never-ending stream of tributes from other musicians, but a murky legacy that left no clear school of descendants, the Pixies represented a peculiar pinnacle of the art of rock ‘n’ roll. They played bitingly melodic miniatures, little spasms barbed with noise and Surrealist lyrics. There was scant precendent for the prickly kind of pop the Pixies played, and their sound is recognizable on the slightes whiff. It’s a series of opposing forces that fit together incongrously but exquisitely: a bouncy yet firm bassline (Deal called it “boingy-boingy-sproingy”) joined to a demented choir of punky guitars; Thompson’s harsh primal scream beside Deal’s coy and smoky harmonies; explosive, grating riffs in songs crafted from prime bubblegum. Behind it all is Thompson’s songwriting, playful but also insular, inscrutable.
Thompson is a master puzzlemaker, and he has made no puzzle greater than Doolittle.
uit: Doolittle - Ben Sisario
