Surfer Rosa
Released
At the time simply the Pixies’s full length debut after a promising EP, Surfer Rosa became an underground sensation and then legitimately iconic, a 1987 prediction of where so much rock music of later years would end up exploring. Shaped by Steve Albini’s famed engineering work, immediate and almost tactile, the quartet’s exploration of loud/soft/loud dynamics, often bemusing but always energetically delivered lyrics and general joy in noise resulted in a hell of a listen and utterly legendary songs like “Gigantic,” “Where Is My Mind?” and “Cactus.”