I was watching a show on Nirvana the other day and there was a quote from Kurt Cobain that essentially said that some of the songs on Nevermind were written with the intent to rip off The Pixies. A lot of other bands have listed The Pixies as a major influence as well, so I went out and bought "Trompe Le Monde " to see what all the hype was about. And I gotta say the album really impressed me. Are all their albums this damn catchy? What’s the best Pixies album? Any and all opinions would be appreciated.
Q: How good are the Pixies?
A: Damn good!
Well, since you started with ** Trompe le Monde **, you can only go up. My personal favorite (and probably my favorite album of all time) is ** Surfer Rosa **. Come on, basically anything produced/engineered/recorded by Steve Albini is going to be great. The songs are strong and were written before Black Francis got too deep into his alien obsession. The band plays wildly yet listenably, and sound like they’re in a garage. Just enough humor, dirtiness, and catchiness to make the perfect album.
Second choice is ** Doolittle **, although it is more song-based than ** Surfer Rosa **, which worked better as a whole. The songs start to slip a bit, but others are even stronger than on the previous album.
Sorry, gotta disagree. How good were the Pixies? Really damn good! 
My favorite Pixies album is also Surfer Rosa. It was the first album from them I ever heard, and had it been a record, it would have been worn out and unplayable after the first week. And then I would have gone and bought it again.
Another band (slightly off-subject, I know) that Nirvana claims to have been greatly influenced by is the Meat Puppets. If you’re enjoying the Pixies, Dark Canuck, you should give these guys a listen as well, especially the song “Why”.
Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, agreed. I think the latter is probably a better place for a (relative) newbie to start, though.
Really, really, really damn good. I handed a demo tape of my band’s material to Black Francis one time. He was very gracious, polite, and seemed interested. He prolly tossed it out the bus window later, but he acted nice at the time. 
Same for Joey Ramone, but that’s a different thread.
My favorites are Surfer Rosa, Come on Pilgrim, and Doolittle. Their ability to write catchy melodies was amazing. I always loved their basslines the best.
God-like.
Boy, I like the Pixies. Trompe le Monde sort of took a little getting used to after their earlier noisier things, but it’s brilliant, too. Doolittle sort of defined my college experience (until Nevermind came out, of course-- I was in the northwest, though).
There were rumours that he was into field-hockey players. . .
Undeniably good. But not as good as the Throwing Muses.
It was like, so…hush-hush! Then the next thing you know…
What to buy, immediately, in order:
Surfer Rosa
Come on Pilgrim
Doolittle
Bossanova
I never liked Nirvana, and still don’t. So I don’t get the comparison. But the Pixies were gods among men.
If you say so. IMO, the Throwing Muses had one spectacular album (The Real Ramona), which is amazing by any standard, and then everything else was so-so. But that could be just because I started with their best album and compared everything I heard afterwards to that one.
Yup.
Surfer Rosa and Doolittle – I can never choose. I like the Albini production sound on Surfer, but Side One of Doolittle is damn near flawless.
I guess I’m in the minority, since I think Trompe Le Monde is not only the Pixies’ best album, but one of the greatest rock albums of all time. It’s cohesive and solid. Both their songwriting and their musicianship reached a higher level.
Of course, all of their albums are great, imo.
I like both the Pixies and Nirvana a great deal. I agree Doolittle is a good place to start. In Canada, Come on Pilgrim/Surfer Rosa are available on the same CD which is also good. I got a broken face!
I love every Pixies album, and I agree with plastic conspiracy that Trompe Le Monde is one of the great rock albums. It’s as good as anything else done by the band.
I have often wondered why the Pixies’ greatness was never recognized by the general public, as they influenced many bands from the grunge era to the present.
Their stuff is still great to listen to, as it is hardly dated and has never been duplicated.
To further add to the OP’s dilemma, I pick Bossanova as their best.
My opinion : Start with Doolittle then onto Surfer Rosa.
So many Dopers can’t be wrong
Yep, start with Surfer Rosa. Join the cult :).
- Tamerlane
Gotta agree on both points whole heartedly… there’s a new Pixie’s CD release with both “Come On Pilgrim” and “Surfer Rosa” on it… if ya gotta get something, get that. You won’t regret it.
As far as the Meat Puppets go, they were a fantastic band… my vote for an introductory album would be “Up On The Sun”, if you like that, get “II” and “Must Have Been High”… in that order.
Once you’ve got all the Pixies albums, you can start in on the Breeders…
You should have started with Dolittle…