Pixies: Bossanova

PIXIES: BOSSANOVA (1990)

1) Cecilia Ann; 2) Rock Music; 3) Velouria; 4) Allison; 5) Is She Weird; 6) Ana; 7) All Over The World; 8) Dig For Fire; 9) Down To The Well; 10) The Happening; 11) Blown Away; 12) Hang Wire; 13) Stormy Weather; 14) Havalina.

General verdict: The Pixies get more soulful, serious, and nostalgic, sacrificing some of their punchy adolescence as their generation ship crosses into the next galaxy.

Pixiesʼ third album sometimes gets a bad rap because it clearly fails to reinvent the world of music the same way that Doolittle did — and it is hardly a coincidence that, for the first time in their relatively short life, the band had hardly any well-gestated material left in stock, and often had to improvise right in the studio. Indeed, next to the total unpredictability and diversity of the previous two albums, Bossanova might come across as a somewhat monotonous, sludgy, rock-oriented experience. But I personally feel that if Doolittle was their Sgt. Pepper, then Bossanova, in some ways, stands up to being regarded as their White Album — a record on which the greatest band of its generation has absolutely nothing left to prove and simply resorts to having as much creative fun as possible. Sometimes it works, occasionally it doesnʼt, but the inspiration never stops, and the juice just keeps on flowinʼ.

It is not the happiest-sounding Pixies album, though, that is for sure. Much of the bandʼs humour has only been preserved in the form of ironic viciousness, and there are overtones of melancholia, nostalgia, and acute yearning for some better place to be (from ʽVelouriaʼ to ʽHavalinaʼ). Throw in the total lack of kick-ass fast tempo rockers, the prevalence of sludgy proto-grunge mid-tempo guitar melodies, and the fact that Kim Deal has largely been pushed into the background (admittedly, she did save all her songwriting ideas for the Breeders at the time), and it is easy to understand why some people might need quite a bit of time to get into this record. But do trust me, it is very worth getting into in the end.

Amusingly, there seems to be not one, but two introductions to the album — a ʽForewordʼ and a ʽPrefaceʼ, if you will. The first one is ʽCecilia Annʼ, a cover of an old instrumental by The Surf­tones which gave the entire record its reputation as the Pixiesʼ «surf-rock album», despite the fact that there had always been a huge surf influence on Pixiesʼ music and Bossanova hardly seems to capitalize on it any more than any other Pixies album. What they do to the tune, by fattening up its guitar tones and putting the rhythm section into an almost heavy-metallic overdrive, is prove what Quentin Tarantino said about surf music — that to him, surf music had always been more about Clint Eastwood in an Ennio Morricone-orchestrated movie than about actual surfing. Itʼs catchy, itʼs fun, itʼs danceable, but it also has DRAMA, and the Pixies cram as much epos and pathos into these galloping two minutes as possible. Once the two minutes are up, you have been mentally prepared to, maybe, take this upcoming stuff a little bit more seriously than ever before... and the lack of vocals, which always raise the bar on quirkiness and playfulness in the Pixiesʼ case, is also quite important.

The vocals do appear on the second introductory track, seductively titled ʽRock Musicʼ — but you will never understand a word they say, because the entire track is like a drunk antithesis to the tight cohesiveness of ʽCecilia Annʼ: with its endless distorted droning riff, continuously wailing monotonous lead guitar, and hardcore screaming all over the studio, it veers on the edge of self-parody, or, if not, at least on the edge of total irony in the face of «rock music» as an artistic concept. As a song, itʼs not much — more like a relentless wall of noise whose «anger» is a bona fide theatrical performance destined to undermine and expose the credibility of «anger» in music itself (a technique that would later be adopted by Ween in their arsenal). But at the same time it is also a sign that the Pixies are not afraid to «mature» by adhering to deeper layers of production and even fatter guitar tones, and by making their music less prone to being denounced as juvenile novelty garbage (if you ever had that temptation, that is).

That sign kind of comes in handy as you proceed on down the line. The first real Pixies song (and the first real classic) on here is ʽVelouriaʼ, announced by grungy power chords worthy of the Seattle scene rather than the Boston one — yet just a few seconds later it becomes clear that this is still a typical romantic Pixies anthem, with a lead guitar line that is more Beethoven than Kurt Cobain and vocals that have more blue-eyed soul in them than hardcore growling. Melodically, it seems to be distantly related to ʽWave Of Mutilationʼ, but the vocals and that wailing lead line give it a more intimate, serenade-like feel, something youʼd probably expect delivered from one star-crossʼd lover to another, especially if the romance took place on a planet where they actually name girls ʽVelouriaʼ. The lyrics donʼt mean much — just grab on to bits and pieces like "hold my head, weʼll trampoline" and "we will wade in the shine of the ever" and thatʼs all you need to request the song for your wedding ceremony, really. The weird thing is, it actually sounds like a genuine, serious, heartwarming love song — even if, on a formal level, the band does not step outside their post-modern conventions at all. I can smirk at this song and I can feel cathartic at the same time — few bands can manage that feat.

Each and every song that follows ʽVelouriaʼ has something to offer, some cute or crazy idea that might seem genius or stupid but actually makes you notice it and evaluate it. These cute or crazy ideas somehow seem largely equivalent to me, so I do not really have any favorites — in terms of pure moronic catchiness, though, the golden bough goes to ʽIs She Weirdʼ, a song whose "is she weird, is she white, is she promised to the night?" has graced my shower one too many times, and whose words, mood, and playful mystique make it a great candidate for some Witcher-themed video, or at least a self-made voodoo ritual. Then again, they are pixies, and itʼs high time they did a creepy counting-out rhyme for the midnight hour. Again, no true innovations here — Santiagoʼs twangy guitar lines weave around Kimʼs pounding hammer bass more or less the same way they did from the very start — but no previous Pixies song truly sounded this ghostly.

The rest of the songs I will go over quickly, especially since thereʼs so many of them. ʽAllisonʼ is a minute-long nursery rhyme whose point is to rhyme ʽAllisonʼ with "hit the sun", and I approve. ʽAnaʼ is a softer, surfier sequel to ʽVelouriaʼ, with gorgeous lead guitar lines that are almost too well-defined and memorable for the songʼs dream-pop textures (if somebody tells you that all dream-pop just has to be atmospheric and squishy and slipping through your brain, shut them up with this song). ʽAll Over The Worldʼ sounds like something Iʼd like to take with me on a generation starship ("with a pet at my side, God in the sky...") — and clocking in at 5:30, it feels almost like the Pixiesʼ own little progressive rock epic; at the very least, the looping "all my thoughts / all I am / are my thoughts" bit is their personal mantra and the closest, so far, they got to turning their music into a (post-modern) religious ceremony.

Of their second single, ʽDig For Fireʼ, I can only say that it is a curious way to merge a very Talking Heads-sounding verse (funky guitar weaving, ʽOnce In A Lifetimeʼ-style sloganeering vocals and all that) with a Madchester-influenced chorus — Talking Heads meet Stone Roses — and although Frank Black himself later dismissed the song as a «bad Talking Heads imitation», I think the combination of the cryptic verse with the heavenly chorus still works. ʽDown To The Wellʼ is probably the albumʼs laziest song, but even here I like the mock-silliness of the melodic resolution, in which "...she went down to the WELL!" is delivered with such a gleefully demonic attitude that you quickly understand WELL is really just a euphemism for HELL. After this, ʽThe Happeningʼ delivers yet another nice melodic contrast — a strange swampy sound for the verse and a high-pitched, totally stoned psychodrone for the bridge, with the lyrics eventually turning to something that feels like rejected outtakes from an early draft of ʽBob Dylanʼs 115th Dreamʼ ("I was driving doing nothing on the shores of Great Salt Lake...").

Skipping over two more tracks, we have a symmetric ending for the album with not one, but two outros. The «proper» ending is ʽStormy Weatherʼ, a track that could pretty much serve as the blueprint for all classic Brian Jonestown Massacre material — a slow, lazy, repetitive retro-Sixties psycho-party vibe with a hip (post-)modern sensibility; silly and way too rowdy-sailorish for Pixies, but if these guys just wonʼt be pigeonholed, so be it. And then, for the ʽGood Nightʼ encore you get ʽHavalinaʼ — smooth, tender, full of classy romantic guitar lines, escapist as heck and a great reminder of how sentimental this band really is at heart.

At the end of the day, there is no dazzling, teasing flame at the heart of Bossanova; it does not even try to recreate the infectiousness of Doolittle, and it does show the band falling back just a little bit too strong on past musical formulae — again, much like the Beatles did with the White Album, or like the Heads did on Speaking In Tongues and their later albums. But the bandʼs overall vision, their sense of humour and their ability to make even clichéd musical ideas sound interesting once again are fully intact. And this additional touch of maturity might actually allow some people to develop a tighter emotional band with the album than any before it — ʽVelouriaʼ and ʽAnaʼ, in particular, have an aura of sincere gorgeousness that would still be unthinkable on the much more playful and sarcastic plains of Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. The best news is, in keeping up with Great Band Reputation, no two Pixies albums (at least, from their classic era) sound alike — well, best for those of us who value experimentation and diversity over sticking to the exact same formula, at least.