Pixies - International Chart Performance

About Pixies

Pixies are a Boston band formed by Black Francis and his college room-mate guitarist Joey Santiago.

Bassist Kim Deal (also of The Breeders) was recruited via a classified ad in a music magazine that stated the band's influences as "Peter, Paul & Mary and Husker Du". An associate of Deal's, David Lovering was hired as drummer.

In the late eighties and early nineties Pixies released a string of critically acclaimed and influential albums: 'Come On Pilgrim', 'Surfer Rosa', 'Doolittle' and 'Bossanova'. The band were massively successful in Europe but failed to crossover from college radio to the mainstream in the US. They defined the quiet-loud-quiet-loud dynamic that Kurt Cobain used as his template for Nirvana - he claimed on numerous occasions to be "just ripping off Pixies".

Following the release of their fifth studio album, 'Trompe' Le Monde, Black Francis notified his colleagues via fax that the band were splitting up. He then embarked on a solo career as Frank Black. Kim Deal focused on the band she had founded with Throwing Muses; Tanya Donnelly, The Breeders.

The band reformed in 2003 and began touring less than a year later. Very little new material was released initially. Pixies did contribute a few cover versions to tribute records. The song 'Bam Thwok' was released in 2003 via the iTunes store and a song named 'Bagboy' was made available for download from their official site in 2013.

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