Pixies
Boston's Pixies built a blueprint half of 1990s alternative rock would trace: verses that whisper, choruses that detonate, and lyrics that read like surrealist pulp fiction. Black Francis's screamed non-sequiturs and Kim Deal's serene basslines gave the band a tension almost no one else quite matched. Doolittle and Surfer Rosa turned "loud-quiet-loud" into a genre unto itself.
Black Francis has said he was listening to almost nothing but Hüsker Dü while writing the Pixies' earliest songs, and that band's fast, distorted attack carried straight through into the Pixies' loudest moments.
listen forCompare Hüsker Dü's "Celebrated Summer" to Pixies' "Bone Machine" — both barrel forward on the same buzzsaw guitar tone and breathless tempo, hardcore energy squeezed into a pop song.
Critics have described the Pixies' sound as surf music colliding with Stooges spikiness — Black Francis's screamed vocal outbursts owe a real debt to Iggy Pop's unhinged delivery.
listen forLine up the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" with Pixies' "Tame" — both let a simple, pounding riff sit under a vocal that snaps from deadpan into full-throated screaming without warning.
Guitarist Joey Santiago has named the Velvet Underground among his earliest touchstones, and the Pixies inherited that band's knack for turning a repetitive, droning groove into something genuinely unsettling.
listen forPlay the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" back to back with Pixies' "Gigantic" — both ride a hypnotic, almost trance-like bass pulse underneath everything else, a foundation the Pixies borrowed straight from Lou Reed and John Cale's playbook.