Not many bands can claim to have been favourites of both Kurt Cobain and David Bowie, but hey, not many bands are the Pixies. The alt-rock masters are heading to Cardiff International Arena this month, so that means it’s time for India Munday to dive into their discography and select the Boston band’s top five tracks.

WHERE IS MY MIND?

I, like many other fans, first fell in love with this band through the goosebump-inducing ending ofFight Club as an angsty teen. A haunting but beautiful track, the “whoooo”s along with the distorted guitars – particularly that sudden solo – transports the listener to a distant shore. Despite it being by far the biggest Pixies tune, it’s hard to become bored by it thanks to the catchy chord progression and oddball lyrics. It’s said to be inspired from when a little fish was following frontman Black Francis while swimming in the Caribbean: “Bumped into me, I swear he was trying to talk to me, koi-koi”.

GIGANTIC

Gigantic by name, gigantic by nature, the track from Pixies’ 1988 album Surfer Rosa is mainly founding bassist Kim Deal’s beautiful creation. Her cutting vocals and simple bassline, latterly honoured in both respects by Deal’s replacement Paz Lenchantin, have kept this song a live fan favourite. Pixies are pundits of the soft-loud-soft dynamic (something Kurt Cobain admitted to copying in Smells Like Teen Spirit), and Gigantic exemplifies this to the fullest.

DEBASER

From the second the throbbing bass begins, this upbeat, noisy banger proves why Pixies really are alt-rock pioneers. Black Francis’ screaming wails combine perfectly with Kim Deal’s coos of the song title. The lyrics are based on a 1929 film by surrealist Luis Buñuel, Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), which features an unsettling opening scene in which a woman’s eyeball is cut in close-up (“Slicing up eyeballs, I want you to know”). David Bowie even covered this song, praising Pixies’ work as one of the “most compelling” of the 1980s.

NOMATTERDAY

This may be from their newest album, but when I first listened to Nomatterday on 2022’s Doggerel [reviewed here], I thought I had accidentally dived into their back catalogue. This opening song is evidence that the Pixies are well and truly still alive, keeping in tow their trusty ‘hey’s and ‘whoa’s in the vocals as well as Lenchantin’s ominous yet simple bassline. This song also reminds me a lot of Monkey Gone To Heaven (itself extremely close to being included in this list) from their 1989 album Doolittle.

HERE COMES YOUR MAN

It’s hard to fathom that frontman Black Francis wrote this at just 15 years old. Guitarist Joey Santiago’s upbeat, jangly surf-rock riffs make this potentially the happiest Pixies song ever; an immediately uplifting track. Likely due to its poppiness, the band had reluctant feelings about Here Comes Your Man – Francis even expressed embarrassment around it when recording Doolittle, on which it features – but with a song sogood, there should be no shame in its MTV-friendly, catchy demeanour. Despite the warmth as a song, like many Pixies classics, its meaning takes on a darker tone lyrically, allegedly about the homeless boarding trains before dying in Californian earthquakes.

Looking back at these tracks, it’s not hard to see why Pixies inspired a whole generation of music and still do today: from Bowie to Nirvana to The Strokes, you can hear their hallmarks in so many other musical greats. Eight studio albums down, their relevance holds up even in their most recent work, let alone experiencing them live. Here Comes Your Chance to see them in the flesh…

Pixies, Cardiff International Arena, Sat 18 Mar.

Tickets: £42.50. Info: here

words INDIA MUNDAY