Your POLL's got a little machine: ILM Artist Poll #71 • Pixies (Voting Thread)

Giving Bossanova & Trompe le Monde one more listen this afternoon then putting my ballot together tonight. Expecting a lot of Surfer Rosa, a little of Doolittle and one or two from Come On Pilgrim.

Misheard lyrics that I only just got around to looking up:

Fall on your face in those bad shoes
Lion-O lockjaw
TAME!

COP 4
SR 6
D 8
B 1
TLM 3

pixies b-sides range from bad to mediocre without exception, i don't understand the tremendous appeal they apparently have

I like 'Into the White' and the two Neil Young covers a lot but they'd barely make my top 30 Pixies songs.

<3 "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons"

I'm working my way though this based on how much I like these tunes right now, rather than what I liked >20 years ago. So, Debaser, which I loved, probably won't make the cut because I feel like I've heard it faaaaaaaaaar too many times.

At least we can all agree Doolitle is the tits, right?

I danced around it for a long time, but I finally made peace with the fact their most popular album (Doolittle) is also their best (Doolittle).

I think the most popular sales-wise is actually Surfer Rosa but I don't have the actual numbers. Just a wild guess.

Doolittle was a platinum album in the US (1m in sales), and only one of the others—Surfer Rosa—is even gold (500k in sales).

Did a quick research and no, you're right, Doolitle is the most popular one. Here's the sales figures according to SoundScan in 2004:

Come On Pilgrim: 144,598
Surfer Rosa: 458,491
Doolittle: 583,564
Bossanova: 215,217
Trompe Le Monde: 306,697
Complete B-Sides: 42,703
Live at the BBC: 49,308
Death To The Pixies: 146,012
Purple Tape: 30,212

Wikipedia actually gives Doolitle over 1,000,000 sales and Surfer over 500,000. Did Doolitle sold almost double that figure in this past decade?

I think SoundScan might have its numbers wrong, though.

Doolittle hit a million in November 1995. Surfer Rosa didn't go gold until April 2005.

http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH

That link lists that Doolitle hit Gold in 1995, not Platinum. It doesn't certificate it as Platinum yet.

Oh, you're right! I didn't even read all the way across. :D

Anyhow... your point stands, Doolitle is way more popular than Surfer Rosa. Had no idea.

Bossanova was a momentum killer for them. Strong record, but it didn't take them to the next level commercially.

Surfer Rosa picked up a lot of cache over time, but it wasn't a landmark record in any way in 1988. Doolittle had MTV video rotation, lots of college radio support and press fawning out the wazoo.

cache=cachet

I was expecting that the popularity of Where is My Mind through licensing in films, tv and ads would translate in higher sales. I was wrong.

I mean most people only know them because of that song, usually the best-known single is also on the best-selling album, nay?

lol I'm not trying to say it was a bad guess. Surfer Rosa is the Pixies album in the 21st century both in terms of respect and influence. It just wasn't seen as that at the time. (And I happen to still prefer Doolittle regardless.)

Surfer Rosa is the Pixies album in the 21st century in terms of boobs.

..I'm not merging things together

I hope the Vamos votes aren't split too much, that song deserves a top 10 place.

Oh damn, I may have to merge things on a case-by-case basis. I didn't think of there being two album versions of Vamos when I rattled off that declaration.

Was is she weird a single from Bossanova? I can't remember.It seems like the closest in terms of style to what came before.

never realized just how awesome that track is until i was listening to tracks for the poll! that and Levitate Me have been in my head for a week now.

Front to back (even though, and probably because, there's only 8 tracks), Come On Pilgrim is the most solid Pixies release. All killer, zero filler.

Ride the Tiger down the River Euphrates.

Brick Is Red is missing from that Wikipedia list upthread, in case anyone's using it to compile their ballot.

An overlooked Frank Black track, "Bullet". My favorite solo track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgV9q6fl1I

I really like Lovely Day, but I can't help feeling the fact he's singing to an alien detracts from it a bit

hahaha. i only really started to enjoy TLM when i learned to let that shit go. lovely day was my last cut.

Hmmmm. I've just finished ranking them and I have both I Bleed and Dead just outside my top 22 when I assumed they were nailed-on to be in there. Need to think some more...

At least we can all agree Doolitle is the tits, right?

― Moka, Tuesday, October 21, 2014 5:27 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I danced around it for a long time, but I finally made peace with the fact their most popular album (Doolittle) is also their best (Doolittle).

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, October 21, 2014 5:28 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's the one I listen to the least. In fact, I'm fairly confident none of its tracks are going to make my ballot!

Weirdo.

I mean, I do think Doolittle is a stronger album than Bossanova, but there's individual tracks on Bossanova that mean more to me than any track from Doolittle.

and Trompe Le Monde is my favourite Pixies record, so...

I wish it were an inclusive poll. I'd love to see how many of us Breeders >>> Pixies these days.

19 ballots in, who wants to be lucky #20?

me!

I have tried to research Pixies songs but got sidetracked by The Breeders and now i can't go back.

voted

Going to vote. Persuaded by Turtleneck Work Solutions to return to ILX for just this purpose.

I like the b-sides. Dancing the Manta Ray! Into the White! The Debbie Gibson one ...

Is there anything good anywhere online on Pixies lyrics? I'd like someone cleverer than me to think about them for me. (Quarter-remembered Melody Maker articles from 1989 aren't going to help.)

well there's song meanings dot com, or some such. doesn't always get it right as it's mostly speculation, but worth a try maybe.

"doesn't always get it right" is an understatement, tbh - often the lyrics themselves are wrong, never mind the interpretations

My ballot split looks like this:
COP: 0
SR: 0
D: 2
B: 11
TLM: 6:
B-sides: 3
I might avoid reading the results of this poll, cause reading other people's rong opinions about the pixies makes me irrationally angry.

Lol at ^this