Post by Terrapin Station on Feb 25, 2018 3:28:57 GMT
Edit: Reading your above replies, I see you're not much of a fan. Frankly, the Pixies are a band I shouldn't like given my typical tastes. I'm not a fan in general of most punk or punk-like music, but Pixies had a really unique combination of furiously abrasive and ridiculously catchy. I think Bowie nailed it when he called them a "psychotic Beatles." Plus, they had a pretty immense influence on 90s alternative rock and indie music; without them, Nirvana and Radiohead are very different bands. It's hard to imagine the 90s without the quiet/minimal verse to loud/maximal chorus structure that all those bands got from the Pixies (not that they were the first to do it, but they were certainly the most influential from that period).
I like enough punk and indie. I just don't think the Pixies were very good songwriters/arrangers. They're usually boring to my ear, stuff is underdeveloped, often formulaic where the formula does nothing for me and it's sometimes annoying to me instead. It's hard for me to believe that they're not primarily respected simply because Kurt Cobain talked about liking them.
I feel the same way about the Replacements by the way.