Twenty two long years after Pixies’ last album, Tromp Le Monde back in 1991, fans were treated to a brand new Pixies EP last September, and another in January. The music blogosphere was somehow caught off guard by the fact that two decades and a major lineup change managed to change the band’s songwriting voice a bit.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth toward the release of EP-1, a record that from any other band would’ve been considered great, if not quite up to the timeless standard of the Pixies’ discography. Digital hipster mecca Pitchfork actually gave the record a one out of ten which reads more like a temper tantrum than a genuine attempt to assess the overall quality of an artwork. Then in January EP-2 dropped, a collection of four songs as truly Pixies as anyone could reasonably demand, and was still needlessly crapped on by infernal music rags everywhere.
Anyway, here’s a new music video out today for “Greens and Blues” off that EP.
As a music video, it’s even more insubstantial than most, but certainly a treat to look at. There appears to be a love story between a struggling graffiti artist and an astronaut — one that the lyrics imply is animal or even alien: “I said I’m human but you know I lied / I’m only visiting this shore.”
Some of the visual shorthand of the ’80s and ’90s alt-rock scene seems to be trying to draw a link between this song and Pixies’ pre-hiatus catalog of work: brightly-colored graffiti walls, the first-person swimming camera angle, faux film distress effects. It’s all very Venice Beach.
But really this is just an excuse for me to say that new Pixies is great and if you don’t think so I’m afraid we can’t be friends.