Track Listing

1. Bone Machine
2. Break My Body
3. Something Against You
4. Broken Face
5. Gigantic
6. River Euphrates
7. Where Is My Mind?
8. Cactus
9. Tony's Theme
10. Oh My Golly!
11. Studio Interlude
12. Vamos
13. I'm Amazed
14. Brick Is Red
15. Caribou
16. Vamos
17. Isla de Encanta
18. Ed Is Dead
19. Holiday Song
20. I've Been Tired
21. I've Been Fired
22. Levitate Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107377 in Music
• Released on: 1992-01-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
1988 4AD release featuring all of the tracks from their 1987debut mini-album 'Come On Pilgrim' and their 1988 debut fulllength album 'Surfer Rosa' on one CD. Eventually they were both were reissued on Elektra in the U.S. in the early '90s,but separately! 22 tracks in all, including 'Gigantic', 'Bone Machine', 'Where Is My Mind?', 'Cactus', 'Vamos' (bothversions!), 'Isla De Encanta', 'I've Been Tired', 'Tony's Theme' and more. Also contains the original cover art from 'Surfer Rosa' of the topless Italian prostitute.

Customer Reviews

Break my body
You know how your dad stopped listening to new music in 1972 or so after he got all those Beatles, Aretha, Neil Young, Marvin Gaye, Stones, and early Zeppelin albums? He knew that Bad Company and Foreigner didn't have anything to add. Lots of intelligent people quit buying records for a while after this band broke up.

The Pixies were a highwater mark that college rock still looks up to -- melodic genius drenched in bone-breaking noise. "Surfer Rosa" rocks like Meet the Pixies. This CD gives you the excellent 8-song EP "Come On Pilgrim," which includes the sublimely beautiful "Caribou" and seven other tooth-loosening hits. "Surfer Rosa" is brilliant from end to end -- I caught my refrigerator repairman singing along to "River Euphrates." "Cactus" and "I'm Amazed" are bedrock. And "Brick is Red" is my secret favorite -- an incomprehensible sing-song.

I'm a humble guy/with healthy desires...
Surfer Rosa must be one of the greatest alternative rock albums ever recorded. Its abrasiveness takes a bit of getting used to, but once you're over the hurdle, it's an exhilarating album. The Pixies had everything a rock band could possibly want- their music is a thrilling adrenaline-fuelled ride- a perfect blend of melody and noise, characterised by a free-wheeling eclecticism, a much-imitated sound of lurching rythmical dynamics and, to top it all, a crazy front man with inspired lyrics. Steve Albini's production is equally impressive- the snare drums crack and the guitars fizz (they were recorded in a toilet cubicle!)- giving the album an irresistible energy.
Come On Pilgrim lacks the punch of Surfer Rosa, and isn't as well recorded, but its worth having for Caribou, Ed is Dead and I've Been Tired, for its amusing lyrics ("I said I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed/I like Lou Reed/she said, sticking her tongue in my ear..")

It amazes me when people laud albums like White Light/White Heat, Loveless and Daydream Nation, when this album clearly wipes the floor with all of them. It's even got a classic sleeve, with some gratuitous female nudity and a surrealism-inspired guitar head protruding from the wall. What more do you want?

the pixies at their very best
Surfer Rosa and Come on Pilgrim together represent a critical distillation of the most interesting aspects of American punk-rock-pop in the 1980s. With precedents ranging from the Velvet Underground through to Leonard Cohen and less familiar points of reference (Peter, Paul and Mary; Mexican pop music; UFO conspiracy theories), the Pixies proved to be (alongside the Talking Heads, Tribe Called Quest, Violent Femmes and bands like Sonic Youth) the most genuinely original music in a sea of utterly indifferent American noise/bilge - catchy tunes buried under mounds of buzzing, screaching guitar, dead-simple bass lines, rackety vocals, and woven together with (by turns) ominous and hilarious words, ungratuitously gratuious.