[Home] [Links] [CultureDose.com]



Read this review and discuss it at CultureDose.com!

Title: Bossanova
By: Pixies
Released by: 4AD
Released on: 1990
Rating (out of 10): 10
Date: 06/23/2001

Road Trip through Hell, Space and Arizona

Much like Jack Kerouac, Black Francis took to the road in a self-seeking journey. He forged out aimlessly, seeking inspiration from the drive. Unlike Kerouac with his typewriter, Black Francis carried a battered guitar case, composing ever-stranger spacey surf-rock instead of run-on sentences. Oh yeah, and Black Francis was good.

The product was 1990’s Bossanova, a hybrid of indie and arena-rock. The success of 1989’s Doolittle found The Pixies flirting with the prospect of mainstream success, and after Black Francis’ road trip, he came up with quite a follow-up.

Where Doolittle was immediately accessible, and “Here Comes Your Man” got decent airplay, Francis created in Bossanova their least accessible, yet most layered album to date. While throwing out almost all of the catchy hooks that made Doolittle as successful as it was, Bossanova thrives on atmosphere. If Doolittle was the cornerstone of the soon-to-be radio-friendly alt-rock of the early 90s, Bossanova was even further ahead of its time, setting up the guitar-based art-rock movement of the late 90s.

That said, Bossanova is hard to “get into.” Kicking off with arena-surf rock, the noisy instrumental “Cecilia Ann,” we shouldn’t be so easily fooled. It’s bait that lures us into an incredibly dark, textual album.

If Black Francis’ eerie subject matter and downright scary imagery fell to the background in former albums due to the intense catchiness of their craftsmanship, it is here that they take center stage. At the same time, while easy accessibility is gone, The Pixies began to define themselves with this album, showing their work at full-stride.

It is hard to imagine Black Francis on the road with an acoustic guitar and coming up with a track like “Rock Music,” two minutes aghast with power-punk and incomprehensible lyrics. That's ironic, as this least accessible track is both original and familiar rock music.

That is not to say there are no perfect pop songs on this album. “Velouria” is a prime specimen of Black Francis’ pop sensibility and arguably their best single ever. It doesn’t have the same bouncibility of “Debaser,” but its layered intricacy unfolds and admirably succeeds in both guitars and vocals.

This said, “Allison” would happily fit on Doolittle, as Santiago’s rockin’ one-note guitar solo and Kim Deal’s rhythmic bass follow the classic tradition. It may be one of the best songs The Ramones never wrote.

The bizarrely cacophonic juxtaposition of pop surf-punk with scary-space rock is part of Bossanova’s charm. “Is She Weird” is an inherently evil samba, but “Ana,” which could be interpreted as similar lyrical subject matter, slides down as a nice slow-jam.

“All Over The World” suggests, as many (if not all) albums dealing with other worlds do, that you don’t have to go very far after all to feel totally foreign. Think of it as a pre-grunge “Ana Ng” meets a pre-paranoia The Moon and Antarctica as Black Francis distortedly proclaims:
All my thoughts
all I am are my thoughts
all my thoughts
I am all what I'm taught
“Dig For Fire” is everything there was to love about the 80s in three minutes and is radio-friendly. PJ Harvey listened to “Down To The Well” too many times, as Black Francis makes one of his most profoundly simple statements ever:
Been thinking to myself
and if a life's not long
what matter does it make
if there'll be favorite songs playing in my head
One of the most memorable songs on Bossanova is “The Happening”—the ultimate road trip song.
It begins with the typical drum-bass intro, and an unusually absent-minded guitar. It progresses as we would expect from The Pixies; humming feedback builds up against the bass and drops back off. Then we’re still not sure where they are taking us.

Following a few rim-shots, smooth vocal wailings come in, as Santiago teeter-totters between two guitar notes that made Yo La Tengo famous. Black Francis adopts Kerouac style narrative to finish the song over this already amazingly, beautifully layered pop symphony. AND IT FADES OUT! Rock on, Francis!

“Blown Away” orbits as the lyrics suggest, with fittingly distant vocals. “Hang Wire” suggests that The Pixies are they same old Pixies. While much of the album is different than their previous releases, it is here we understand that through similar sound, they’re still gonna “bossanova with ya.” “Stormy Weather” follows in this tradition. The album is indeed more layered, but it begins to sound more familiar.

A typical closing to such a rock-space extravaganza would be a long guitar-drone, layered with cacophonic guitar and Black Francis either singing like a girl or screaming like a demon. It is here, however, that The Pixies pull one last punch. This may be what you would expect someone not as seemingly deranged as Francis to write on a road trip. Immediately bridging the gap from distant space to the heart, while creating their most intimate song ever, The Pixies play echoing acoustics with gentle vocals and pleasant imagery:
Havalina
Walking in the breeze
On the plains of old Sedona
Arizona
Among the trees
“Havalina” makes it quite clear that this is still a surf-rock album at heart. Sure, it is The Pixies’ most complex album with a preoccupation with outer-space and “big sound,” but they employ the same spooky instrument that The Beach Boys used on “Good Vibrations,” suggesting space-rock and surf-rock aren’t too far apart. And just look at David Lovering’s picture in the liner notes. What a surf-boy.


© Copyright CultureDose.com 06/23/2001

Buy This on eBay!
 • Look for Bossanova on eBay!
 • Look for Pixies on eBay!
 • Look for 4AD on eBay!

Buy This!
 • Buy this from Amazon for $11.98 (CD)
 • Buy this from Amazon for $5.68 (Cassette)
 • Buy this from Djangos for $10.99 (CD)
 • Buy this from CDnow for $11.49 (CD)
 • Buy this from CDnow for $5.49 (Cassette)