Seriously, who are the Pixies and why are they trending?

25 October 2016 - 15:34 By Sefiso Hlongwane
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If you've never heard of the Pixies, join the club. It turns out they are rock legends who are set to tour South Africa in March. You know, in case you're wondering why they've been trending on Twitter for the past two days. But, who exactly are they and what really makes them icons?

Somizi loves them impersonationsvia Instagram 

When we learnt that the Pixies would be headlining the inaugural Rock on the Lawns music festival, we had to stop what we were doing and quickly get acquainted. Because. Fomo (fear of missing out).

So we went onto iTunes, clicked on one of their albums, Surfer Rosa, and spent about half an hour or so letting the sound sink in.

Look, it's no Cassper Nyovest or Babes Wodumo, but their music goes in!

via GIPHY

So we did a little more digging...

Most influential rock band of the late 80s

Records show that the Pixies were one of the most influential rock bands in the late 80s and very early 90s. So this is around the same time when you (or most likely, your parents) were jamming to the sounds of Brenda Fassie and Mango Groove.

They only released four full-length albums - the first, Surfer Rosa, came out in 1988; the last, Trompe Le Monde, materialised three-and-a-half years later. But if reviews are anything to go by, all of them are great.(Obvs we didn't have time to listen to all of them).

Star-studded fan base

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has been quoted as saying, "the Pixies changed my life". Bono from U2 called them "one of America’s greatest bands ever". And the late David Bowie claimed the Pixies made "just about the most compelling music of the entire 80s".

The rock group’s most famous fan, however, was Kurt Cobain. Remember him? From Nirvana? Well, at the height of his celebrity in the early 1990s, he could barely get through an interview without name-dropping the band. In 1994, Kurt told Rolling Stone how he wrote on of his hit songs, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

"I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies," he said.

Disbanded at the height of their career

Shame, after five genre-defining studio albums, the Pixies called it quits in 1993. If you thought Malaika's break-up was bad, this one was apparently heated!

But luckily, they managed to sort out their differences in 2003, when they reunited for a tour.

Apparently their initial comeback shows in 2004 sold out within minutes. A four-night stand at London’s Brixton Academy was the fastest-selling run of concerts in the venue’s history.

 

One member down

You know how Somizi replaced Bonang with Unathi Msengana when their friendship took a turn for the worse?

The Pixies had a similar case when one of its founding members, Kim Deal, left in 2013 to work on another rock band, the Breeders, she founded in the 90s when the Pixies were on a hiatus.

Back with a bang!

On 30 September, the world had a new Pixies studio album, called Head Carrier. Word has it that the 12-track collection is a mix of a lot things only rock-heads will understand. It was recorded at London’s Rak Studios from mid-February through to mid-March this year.

The Pixies will be performing at the Festival Lawns at Carnival City, Joburg, on 16 March and will play under the stars at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town 18 March.

Tickets are priced from R495 and are available at computicket.com

PS. Our editor made us do this.

 

 


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