History Music / ThePixies

* SurrealHumour: Francis loves this.

* NightmareFetishist: Black Francis gleefully sings about molestation, EyeScream and violent Old Testament stories, among other things.

* NightmareFetishist: Black Francis.

Another highly influential 1980s AlternativeRock band that reached a moderate level of popularity but enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. [[BigNameFan Famous fans]] include: [[Music/ModestMouse Isaac Brock]], [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Kurt Cobain]], Music/DavidBowie, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/PJHarvey, Music/{{Weezer}}, [[Music/{{U2}} Bono]], and [[Music/TheSmashingPumpkins Billy Corgan]], among others.

->''[[SuddenlyShouting Then GOD IS SEVEN!]]"''
-->-- '''Pixies''', "Monkey Gone to Heaven" - ''Music/{{Doolittle}}''.

->''"We can play loud or quiet — that's it."''
-->-- '''Black Francis''', quoted in the article [[http://aleceiffel.free.fr/gods.html "The Pixies: Gods of Almost Pop"]]

->''"In 1988, the Pixies sounded like no other band. By 1991, [[FollowTheLeader every band sounded like the Pixies]]."''
-->-- '''bogoslav''', contributor to [=RateYourMusic.com=]

Another highly influential 1980s AlternativeRock band that reached a moderate level of popularity but enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. Famous fans include: [[Music/ModestMouse Isaac Brock]], [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Kurt Cobain]], Music/DavidBowie, Music/{{Radiohead}}, Music/PJHarvey, Music/{{Weezer}}, [[Music/{{U2}} Bono]], and [[Music/TheSmashingPumpkins Billy Corgan]], among others.

* AudienceParticipationSong: There's a video on YouTube of the audience shouting the lyrics to "Stormy Weather" during (appropriately enough) a performance hit by thunderstorm.

* ShoutOut: To ''Film/UnChienAndalou'' in "Debaser."

** The spelling of P-I-X-I-E-S on "Cactus" is a reference to a [[Music/MarcBolan T. Rex]] song in which they do the same thing.

* UncommonTime: Several songs, such as "River Euphrates", "No. 13 Baby", "There Goes My Gun", and "Velouria", make copious use of 7/4 or 14/4. "Brick Is Red" has an opening with 10/4 (4+4+2) and 14/4 (4+4+4+2), and "Oh My Golly" and "Alec Eiffel" use 11/4 at various points. "Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons" is in 9/4. This is undoubtedly nowhere near a complete list; this trope could almost be considered part of the band's SignatureStyle, though it doesn't appear in every song. Black Francis has noted that he listened to a lot of Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer and Music/CaptainBeefheart growing up; this may be part of the explanation for his frequent use of this trope.

* UncommonTime: Several songs, such as "River Euphrates", "No. 13 Baby", "There Goes My Gun", and "Velouria", make copious use of 7/4 or 14/4. "Brick Is Red" has an opening with 10/4 (4+4+2) and 14/4 (4+4+4+2), and "Oh My Golly" and "Alec Eiffel" use 11/4 at various points. This is undoubtedly nowhere near a complete list; this trope could almost be considered part of the band's SignatureStyle, though it doesn't appear in every song. Black Francis has noted that he listened to a lot of Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer and Music/CaptainBeefheart growing up; this may be part of the explanation for his frequent use of this trope.

* UncommonTime: Several songs, such as "River Euphrates", "No. 13 Baby", "There Goes My Gun", and "Velouria", make copious use of 7/4 or 14/4. "Brick Is Red" has an opening with 10/4 (4+4+2) and 14/4 (4+4+4+2), and "Oh My Golly" uses 11/4 at various points. This is undoubtedly nowhere near a complete list; this trope could almost be considered part of the band's SignatureStyle, though it doesn't appear in every song. Black Francis has noted that he listened to a lot of Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer and Music/CaptainBeefheart growing up; this may be part of the explanation for his frequent use of this trope.

* BoleroEffect: Despite the self-deprecating page quote above, they have a few songs with crescendi. "River Euphrates" and "No. 13 Baby" are probably the most noteworthy.

** The formula is inverted by "Bone Machine", which has loud verses and a quiet chorus.

* EpicInstrumental: The first 1:13 of "Brick Is Red" are instrumental. That might not seem like all that long by the standards of this trope, but the song itself only runs for 2:02.

* ContemptibleCover: ''Surfer Rosa'', with its topless flamenco dancer.

** "All Over the World", "The Happening", and "No. 13 Baby" also have elements of this, though it should be noted that none of them actually exceed six minutes. They could be considered somewhat to be condensed examples of this, since they abandon the band's traditional verse/chorus/bridge structure for much weirder song structures.

* LyricalDissonance: "Wave of Mutilation", "Gigantic", "Here Comes Your Man", "Debaser", etc.

** "Something Against You" is another noteworthy example, since in addition to Francis' traditional CarefulWithThatAxe, his vocals are also extremely distorted.
** While CarefulWithThatAxe in general results in a lot of these, some other songs qualify as much due to the speed at which Francis sings them, such as "Oh My Golly!" and "Crackity Jones".

* IndecipherableLyrics: "Rock Music". Don't even bother looking in the ''Bossanova'' booklet, that song wasn't included in the printed lyrics.

* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Kind of zigzagged, since they usually have fairly simple chorus/verse/bridge structure without all that many chords, but they often use unusual chord progressions and rhythms (see UncommonTime below), and some of their songs ("No. 13 Baby", "The Happening", etc.) use highly unusual song structures as well. ("No. 13 Baby" is practically a proto-PostRock song.)

* UncommonTime: Several songs, such as "River Euphrates", "No. 13 Baby", and "Velouria", make copious use of compound meters like 7/4. "Brick Is Red" has an opening with 10/4 and 14/4, and "Oh My Golly" uses 11/4 at various points. This is undoubtedly nowhere near a complete list; this trope could almost be considered part of the band's SignatureStyle, though it doesn't appear in every song.

* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth

* UncommonTime: Several songs, such as "River Euphrates", "No. 13 Baby", and "Velouria", make copious use of compound meters like 7/4.