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The Best Album Of All Time - Pixies v the Smiths

Which is the better album?

  • Pixies - Doolittle

    Votes: 5 35.7%

  • The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead

    Votes: 9 64.3%
  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .
milo

milo

Jack L. Jones
Pixies-Doolittle.jpg


Doolittle is the second studio album from the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in April 1989 on 4AD. The album's offbeat and dark subject material, featuring references to surrealism, Biblical violence, torture and death, contrasts with the clean production sound achieved by the newly hired producer Gil Norton. Doolittle was the Pixies' first international release, with Elektra Records acting as the album's distributor in the United States and PolyGram in Canada.

Pixies released two singles from Doolittle, "Here Comes Your Man" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven", both of which were chart successes on the US chart for Modern Rock Tracks. The album itself reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart, an unexpected success for the band. In retrospect, album tracks such as "Debaser", "Wave of Mutilation", "Monkey Gone to Heaven", "Gouge Away", and "Hey" are highly acclaimed by critics, while the album, along with debut LP Surfer Rosa, is often seen as the band's strongest work.

Doolittle has continued to sell consistently well in the years since its release, and in 1995 was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album has been cited as inspirational by many alternative artists, while numerous music publications have ranked it as one of the most influential albums ever. A 2003 poll of NME writers ranked Doolittle as the second-greatest album of all time,[1] and Rolling Stone placed the album at 226 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_(album)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7A0459BA44E688CD

Last time out

v


QID2.jpg


The Queen Is Dead is the third studio album by the English alternative rock band The Smiths. It was released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records and released in the United States on 23 June 1986 through Sire Records. The album spent twenty-two weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 2. Across the Atlantic, it reached No. 28 in Canada on the RPM 100 album chart[1] and No. 70 on the Billboard 200 chart, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 1990. It has sold consistently well ever since. The album cover, designed by Morrissey, features Alain Delon from the 1964 film L'Insoumis. In 2013 The Queen Is Dead was ranked the greatest record of all time on NME Greatest Albums of All Time list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_Is_Dead

[video=youtube;dJVaxD8GDWw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJVaxD8GDWw[/video]

The Smiths in the first round
 
Ouch! This is the toughest one so far. Both will need a listen again but I think I may end up abstaining.
 
Really tough choice but ended up going with The Pixies, merely based on the fact that I've listened to that album more over the past 10 years.
 
All much of a muchness to me. Something hipsters would have listened to if they'd been around in the 90s.

Been forced to listen to both a few times too many by "music police" at social gatherings.
 
The Queen is Dead...... have to say though i'm not sure its the best Smiths album, to me its one of my favourite albums of all time but i just feel that with Strangeways they really started to expand from that bedroom Indie/Rock sound and sounds like it could have been made at any point in the last 20 years, whereas The Queen is Dead this seems more of its time...... its still perfect though and the lyrics are just breathtakingly funny.
 
RomanzoCriminale said:
The Queen is Dead...... have to say though i'm not sure its the best Smiths album, to me its one of my favourite albums of all time but i just feel that with Strangeways they really started to expand from that bedroom Indie/Rock sound and sounds like it could have been made at any point in the last 20 years, whereas The Queen is Dead this seems more of its time...... its still perfect though and the lyrics are just breathtakingly funny.
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I agree. I find myself going back to Strangeways a lot more than I used to
 
The Pixies get my vote. I saw them live at the Isle of Wight Festival a good number of years back. I was amazed at how few people either wanted to watch them, or even knew who they were!!

I do like The Smiths's music though, I went through a stage of listening to a lot of their music. I just think that the Pixies have the edge here.
 
El Guepardo said:
The Pixies get my vote. I saw them live at the Isle of Wight Festival a good number of years back. I was amazed at how few people either wanted to watch them, or even knew who they were!!

I do like The Smiths's music though, I went through a stage of listening to a lot of their music. I just think that the Pixies have the edge here.
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I think the Pixies are a better band in general, and they've influenced at least as many other bands that I like as the Smiths, if not more.

But their best tracks are split really evenly across their first three albums and I don't think any one album stands out as a true great. In fact, I'd pick Surfer Rosa over Doolittle anyway.

The Queen is Dead gets my vote as it's the better album even if it is by an inferior band (marginally). Maybe if we did a best group competition then the Pixies could win.
 
scaramanga said:
I think the Pixies are a better band in general, and they've influenced at least as many other bands that I like as the Smiths, if not more.

But their best tracks are split really evenly across their first three albums and I don't think any one album stands out as a true great. In fact, I'd pick Surfer Rosa over Doolittle anyway.

The Queen is Dead gets my vote as it's the better album even if it is by an inferior band (marginally). Maybe if we did a best group competition then the Pixies could win.
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See i would say the Smiths have influenced more bands that i like and i would have thought had a much bigger influence over British guitar music these past 30 years...... The Pixies made a couple of great albums but no way would i say they came near being a better band, not anywhere near. Did the Smiths make a bad song? okay maybe Miserable lie and the cover of Golden lights, struggling to think of another.

Would love to know the bands you feel the Pixies influenced and more than the Smiths. I can only think of possibly Nirvana and the Lemonheads out of the bands i like, but then most of the bands i love are British.
 
RomanzoCriminale said:
See i would say the Smiths have influenced more bands that i like and i would have thought had a much bigger influence over British guitar music these past 30 years...... The Pixies made a couple of great albums but no way would i say they came near being a better band, not anywhere near. Did the Smiths make a bad song? okay maybe Miserable lie and the cover of Golden lights, struggling to think of another.

Would love to know the bands you feel the Pixies influenced and more than the Smiths. I can only think of possibly Nirvana and the Lemonheads out of the bands i like, but then most of the bands i love are British.
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I hear a lot of Pixies in the White Stripes.

I love both bands and think that both of these albums are marvellous, even if they are not my favourite by each band. I think that both of them were unique and sounded like no one who had come before, tackled new topics to popular music in their lyrics and cast a very long shadow over the bands that followed.

Anyway. The Smiths go through to the next round.
 
RomanzoCriminale said:
See i would say the Smiths have influenced more bands that i like and i would have thought had a much bigger influence over British guitar music these past 30 years...... The Pixies made a couple of great albums but no way would i say they came near being a better band, not anywhere near. Did the Smiths make a bad song? okay maybe Miserable lie and the cover of Golden lights, struggling to think of another.

Would love to know the bands you feel the Pixies influenced and more than the Smiths. I can only think of possibly Nirvana and the Lemonheads out of the bands i like, but then most of the bands i love are British.
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Sorry, I wrote a really long response to this and didn't post it. Looks like it's lost.

Mostly, it was about an article I read in around 1995/96 when just about every British guitar band for almost a decade had listed the Pixies as an influence at some point.
 
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