Yes, I Love the Pixies

For some reason, when I got back to my room, I thought back to a conversation at lunch and got all fueled up again, so I'm going to write it out. Live with it.

Opinion is different than fact. (who knew?!?) When I say that the Pixies are one of the most influential bands that ever walked the earth, don't smother me saying "YOU'RE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT!" "THAT'S JUST YOUR OPINION!" No. It's true. When a band shakes the very foundations of what music was up to that point, that's an influential band. When a singer, say Justin Timberlake, steals other musicians' music just to "sing" and "rap" over it just like every other (sadly) popular artist of their day, it is not influential. My opinion plays in when I say that type of "music" is crap.

I know I'm not always right. I'll admit that. (insert pause for gasps from readers) You know, I'm rarely correct. But truth is that the Pixies are an extremely influential band. Reasons are as follows:

A) Their lyrics. Rare is the day that you'll come across a Pixies song that makes sense straight off the bat. Even I, after a few years of listening to them almost daily, have a very difficult time telling you what some of their songs are about. But, I can tell you they all deal with something different. One is about a prison inmate writing to his girlfriend asking her to send him her dirty clothes. Another is about how everyone hated the Alexander Eiffel's tower and how art isn't appreciated in its time. Then, you'll come across a song about how an extraterrestrial was having a great day until he decided to visit Earth and got thrown into a crate and studied by scientists. Another song, written and sung in Puerto Rican Spanish, is about how much a boy loves a blonde surfer, and how sh*tty life becomes when they break up. Variety. It's not all "My life sucks, drone drone drone," "I like you, but you don't like me, drone," "Bitches and hos and money, my life is better than yours and I'm rubbing it in your face, but not without saying how tough life was for me because I'm black or I lived in some city." And not only did they have variety, you actually have to use your brain to understand what's being sung about.

B) The music. It's so unclean, so unfinished. That's part of what makes you pay attention to it. Very few of their songs sound like "studio quality" songs. It's such a step in a different direction that one can't help but listen. And then the guitar. Not knowing anything about guitar, it sounds fairly simple. I'm probably wrong, but still. The thing that stands out about the guitar in their songs is its tuning. It's constantly bending, making you want to cock your head to the side when you hear it. Again, it's an attention grabber for the ears. The bass is so simple, almost like a heart beat of the songs. The drums are simple too, sometimes going on beats that you're not used to hearing, but still quite simplistic. Music doesn't have to be complicated to be amazing. And the dynamics. One second it's making your ears bleed, the next you have to sit next to the speaker to hear it. They swing more than the moods of Aunt Flo. It's all about keeping the listener listening and underlining what's the most important part of the message the lyrics are trying to convey.

C) The singing. Frank Black is by no means the best singer I've ever heard. He can hit the notes (when he wants to), I'll give him that, but he's not a quality singer. But his voice fits with the music perfectly. Whether he's singing or yelling (and his yelling is in short bouts, to underline points of the song, not enough to make your ears bleed. It still has an oddly musical feel to it). Kim Deal, the bassist, has a decent voice as well. Not the best, not the worst. Again, it fits perfectly with the music. It adds to the overall sound of their songs and keeps that much more of your attention.

D) No sex appeal. In a world where few artists are successful unless they can look good in skimpy outfits, the Pixies are extremely refreshing. Basically, it underlines basing the music on the music itself and not the looks of the band. The only video I've seen from them is for "Veloria," and all it is is them running down a quarry in slow motion. Not a "sexy sexy" slow motion, more like a "crap, the projector's not working" slow motion. It makes you pay more attention to the sound than the visual.

Balding, sweatshirts, and flannel. Nothing sexier than that.

E) The bands they influenced: Nirvana, Weezer, Radiohead, David Bowie, U2, Blur, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, OK Go, and pretty much any modern rock band you can think of. I know, I know. U2 and David Bowie were before the Pixies, but they admit that their songs written after listening to them were altered by influence.




The Pixies are a required taste, and I understand that not everyone likes them. But, you don't have to like someone to respect them. And NEVER tell me that Justin Timberlake is anything more than a flash in the pan. That's a spit in music's face. And NEVER tell me that "[I'm] not always right" in a high-and-mighty, I'm-going-to-knock-you-off-your-pedestal kind of tone. That's a spit in my face, telling me that I'm ignorant of myself, and I don't much appreciate that. And don't say that "it's just [my] opinion" that the Pixies were one of the most influential bands. It's fact, not opinion. A band doesn't have to be commercially successful in order for them to change the shape of the world of music. And being commercially successful doesn't always change the way music is done from them on, like, oh....Justin Timberlake.

No.

I've got something against you.