Surfer Rosa

The Pixies made this in Boston with Steve Albini for around ten thousand dollars in under two weeks. It sounds like the room it was cut in: drums slamming off the walls, studio chatter left on the tape, some vocals recorded in a bathroom for the echo. Kim Deal sings Gigantic, the best song here and one of the great bass lines anywhere. And buried in the middle sits Where Is My Mind?, which a decade later closed Fight Club and eventually became the most famous thing the band ever did.