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8:59 · 1,197 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- The technique that carried Smells Like Teen Spirit onto radio was extreme dynamics, quiet verses against noisy explosive choruses, and Nirvana took it from Pixies.
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- The context makes the theft legible. In the 1980s Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses and Van Halen set the terms with soaring choruses and polished production, while even R.E.M. and The Smiths kept conventional structures.
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- Pixies formed in Boston in 1986 barely knowing each other, aiming at a merger of Peter, Paul and Mary's folk harmony with Husker Du's punk energy.
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- Surfer Rosa, produced by Steve Albini, is where soft melodic verses and abrasive choruses became a tension-and-release system rather than an accident.
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- Black Francis called it Dumbo dynamics, saying the band only knew how to play loud or quiet, with no sophisticated understanding behind it, just energy and instinct.
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- Cobain never hid it. He said Surfer Rosa shaped his writing for Nevermind, that he had been too afraid to play his own songs for anyone until he heard it, and after Teen Spirit that he was basically trying to rip Pixies off.
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- What he actually wanted was the drum sound, which is why he hired Albini for In Utero. Billy Corgan says Smashing Pumpkins studied the same record for its technical details.
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- Albini's refusal to sugarcoat rough sound is the unsung half of the story, and PJ Harvey sought him out for Rid of Me on the strength of it.
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- The spread is traceable: Radiohead's Creep runs the same unsettling verse into a menacing chorus, and Rivers Cuomo names Pixies as a major influence on early Weezer.
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- Pixies never converted the influence into American success, split in 1992 just as the mainstream turned, and became legendary afterwards, helped along by Where Is My Mind closing Fight Club.
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