The Pixies and music videos

The best pop band in the world that never was. The Pixies are huge full stop. Their influence has been acknowledged by many far and wide. Why is it then that hardly anybody knows their name let alone their music?

Personally I believe it's because the Pixies have never wanted mainstream success. Where other bands bent over backwards to get a chance at hitting it big, the Pixies thumbed their noses at the music distribution industry and kept on walking. One example of band's incredible moxy that always sticks in my mind is their refusal to play along with MTV. Just like that artist that gave the big finger to Google, the Pixies gave the big finger to MTV by refusing to lip-sync to one of their songs in order to make a music video. To this day, you'll be hard pressed to find a music video to a Pixie's song.


At one point, the Pixie's song "Velouria" was finding success on the UK pop charts and upon breaking into the top 40, the band was offered some air time on Top of the Pops but a stipulation for bands playing live on the show from the BBC was that they must have a video to include with their track. The Pixies threw together a 23 second video of them running down a quarry towards a video camera with the clip ending just as the band members reached the camera. The video was then stretched to fit the length of the song producing a slow motion clip that went for over 3 minutes.

To me, this is some of the charm that keeps Pixies songs on constant rotation on my ipod. Rare enough to find a band with the scope and calibre of the Pixies but also one with a similar degree of heart and sense of humour? Death to the Pixies!

Let's sign this post off with one of the Pixies better known songs - "Where is my Mind?"