Customer Reviews

Surfer Rosa

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Buy Buy Buy! If your ears are vomiting of todays chart topping music and you prefer someting a little more strange, weird, screamed, spine tingling and most importantly influential, Surfer Rosa is your choice.

How can I put into words how great this is? "Surfer Rosa" is one of the best CD's I have ever heard. I am a huge Nirvana fan, and when I first heard this CD, even I had to admit to myself that this band, the Pixies, laid the basic blueprint for Nirvana. When you actually take the time to listen to the Pixies, if you know anything about music at all, you realize that without them, the whole Seattle sound phenomenon may never have happened.

This is just an amazing album. Messy, explosive, dirty, raw, brilliant -- those are just a few ways to describe it. Every track is great in its own way, but some standouts are "Bone Machine," "Where Is My Mind?", and the Kim Deal-penned "Gigantic," one of the best expressions of female sexuality I've ever heard. All of the instruments are excellent, particularly the drumming, and Black Francis' (Frank Black's) vocals are perfect. Some say the underproduction of Steve Albini is pretentious and unnecessary, but it's not -- it just means you have to listen a little harder, and that's a great thing.

I first heard this CD the day before yesterday, and I've listened to it six times since then -- that's how undeniably great it is. Do yourself a huge favor, and run out right away to buy this. If you like the kind of music that led you to be checking out Pixies albums on amazon, you'll love this album.

This band did everything before anyone else. In the late eighties they rocked the casbah with surfer rosa, their second album. Their is so much original young talent in this band that comes through, fifteen years later i love listening to them, they never soured like REM or Janes addiction, they just broke up. They have an edgy punk sound without going over the edge that sonic youth goes over, they can still be appreciated by the masses. I am one of millions that would agree, they have a huge cultlike following and are defacto foundation layers of riffy, innovative, catchy and sometimes funny / unusual...it helps if you speak spanish as every now and then they will sing in spanish (seldom)...

Surfer Rosa is so seminal that this meager review can do it no justice. I'd be ashamed to provide a summary of this album; it's just so damn good. Pixies were the band I wanted to be when I was 20, and Surfer Rosa is the album I wanted to make. Hell, they still are; it still is. It's flailing, emotional, hilarious even. It's daring and open and certainly not akin to mainstream rock of its era.

How do I pick a gem on an album that's so great from start to finish? I'm just not going to. If you're a fan of rock, be it "indie" or arena, you should own this record.

This is the album to buy if you want to start getting into the Pixies.

I wasn't sure what to think about the album on my first listen. Then as I listened more, I realized the genius in the simplicity of this album. The one thing I did notice was the production of the drums. They sound HUGE. Steve Albini was at his best with that.

Highlights are "Where is My Mind?" "Cactus" and "Bone Machine."

I believe this to be the best of the Pixies' albums, with Doolittle at a very close second. It may be true that they wrote better songs down the road, but with Steve Albini's grinding production and the fire down somewhere in Black Francis' lungs and Joey Santiago's right hand, this is the most bone-crunching, throat-tearing, purely PHYSICAL album the Pixies ever made (and certainly one of the most intense albums rock music ever produced).

Every thumping, screaming, thrashing moment conjures images of bodies - usually bodies coming apart ("Break my body", "Broken face", "Bone machine"). But even what passes for romantic/love songs on the album are obsessed with physical detail, such as when Black Francis insists his lover prove her long-distance existence with physical evidence ("bloody your hands on the cactus tree/wipe it on your dress/and send it to me"). "Gigantic", which sports one of the best bass/guitar riffs *ever*, is obsessed not even with lust or sex, but with Kim Deal's swaggering celebration of her boyfriend's, ahem, "big big love". This exceedingly frank approach compliments their intense sound perfectly. The singing by both Deal and Francis is at the peak of their abilities, blending together like no male/female pair has sung since the Mamas and the Papas (if Mama Cass was into heavy metal). And, probably my favorite part, Black Francis produces probably the best screams I've ever heard throughout the album, particularly on "Bone Machine".

I could go on and on about Joey Santiago's remarkably innovative guitar playing and the fantastic drumming, but I'll leave it at this: Surfer Rosa is a crucial album for anyone who is interested in rock music made past 1989 or so. Most rock movements of the 90's, and therefore everything beyond, were deeply influenced by this album (most famously Kurt Cobain admitted to having "stolen" much of his sound from the band - stolen is a bit harsh, but somewhat accurate). No collection is complete without it.

Well the Pixies are among my favorite bands. I got this CD when I was going to pick up Doolittle, but they didn't have it at the store (typical bad selection at CD stores), so I got this one because I didn't want to go out empty-handed. Well I definitely wasn't disappointed. I was actually glad I had purchased this album before Doolittle. This album is just full of rabid goodness. When you sing along with the lyrics you don't realize what you're saying until you step back and then you just sit there for a little while with a weirded out amused look on your face. Then you jump back in. And Where Is My Mind? is one of the best Pixies songs of all time. Definitely buy this album, and Doolittle.

This is one of the great rock recordings of all time. In the sixties, there was Dylan with Highway 61 Revisited, the Beatles with Rubber Soul, Big Brother with Cheap Thrills, Jimi Hendrix with Are You Experienced. In the seventies, there was Patti Smith with Horses and the Ramones. In the eighties, there was the first Pretenders album and there was Surfer Rosa. In the nineties, there was Nevermind. It's too early to know what will be a classic from this decade, but too late not to know that Surfer Rosa helped make the eighties worthwhile.

I can't add much to 100-plus reviews below. This is the Pixies at their most energetic. There isn't a bad moment. Kim Deal doesn't get cooler or funnier than "This is a song about a superhero named Tony..." You can't go wrong with Surfer Rosa. Buy it now and congratulate yourself later.

Arguably "Doolitlle" contains their best songs but "Surfer Rosa" is definitely their most driving,trailblazing and fierce album.
And when you're talking about the Pixies that's something really good.

"Come on Pilgrim" had already shown traces of their future songwriting but the thrashing guitars had yet to be fused with their trademark rompant melodies(Steve Albini unarguably made them progress in the right direction).

The beginning is downright scorching and we're given no respite until Kim Deal's "Gigantic".The extremely abrasive "Something Against You" has my favorite riff ever(cuasi metallic,cuasi flamenco)and the choruses to the first two tracks are the Pixies at their very best.

It would be tiresome to describe all the details that make this album superb and that send it soaring above any possible contender,still the utterly perfect ballad "Where is my Mind?"(best ballad ever made?)and the melodic"River Euphrates"deserve reference.

Besides,Black Francis' lyrics are incredibly inventive and whatever the subject he tackles is you can almost always recognise his demented sense of humour peering through even the most violent wordplay as he even manages to mix some spanish words in his lyrical hodgepodge("Vamos a jugar a la playa"
-from "Vamos").

"Surfer Rosa" is,like many have already said,the best punk album made after 1977 and an exciting and quite addictive rush of adrenaline matched by few other recordings.

Im not sure where to start on this one. The Pixies created a timeless album here, not in the sense that everyone will love it because many will probably hate it, but this album is something very special. Between noisy rockers (something against you, im amazed) and pop gems (gigantic, where is my mind?) the Pixies truly shine all over this album. In fact there isnt much about this album that I dont like. The music is very simple, which goes in Sharp contrast with the ultra-technical hair metal of the time. The guitars are raw and abrasive, but also highly enjoyable, it should go without saying that Joey Santiago is one of the most underrated guitarists of the eighties. The lyrics are very funny, bizzare and really clever at the same time. They should get you some odd looks singing them out loud on a bus. Take thes lyrics for example:

"I was talking to preachy-preach about kissy-kiss
He bought me a soda
He bought me a soda
He bought me a soda and he tried to molest me in the parking lot
Yep, yep yep YEP!"

"There was this boy who had two
Children with his sisters
They were his daughters
They were his favourite lovers"

Those are just two songs theres more weirdness to pass around but I wont go into it now. The vocals jump from sweet to scream as the verse changes to the chorus (this would later be a trademard of Nirvana). The production by steve albini is very raw but I tend to think that's for the best, these songs would sound pretty lame if they were too polished. In conclusion if you buy Surfer Rosa you'll be dancing your pants to their awesome rock sounds all night.