“Head On”
by the Pixies (originally by The Jesus and Mary Chain)
from the album Trompe Le Monde
1991 4AD
Buy the album on Amazon

Confession time: I got into the Pixies really late in the game.  I was familiar with them from watching 120 Minutes but for some reason nothing really stuck with me at the time.  I now consider them one of my all-time favorite bands, but I can’t cop to being there at the beginning like most of my other friends.  Why did I take so long for me to catch on? I’m not sure, but when it did, it stuck.  Hard.

Sometime around ’98 or ’99 my buddy Ray (an original Pixies fan and Bostonian) reintroduced me to the Pixies.  He was such a huge fan and we had a lot of other music in common, so I picked up an album or two.  The albums probably set on a shelf for a couple of weeks.  I have a history of buying albums and then letting collect dust until I’m ready for them.  Or maybe until they’re ready for me.  Do albums choose people?  Eventually one night I made my way through one of them, probably Doolittle and got hooked.  I then immediately ordered everything else I could get my hands on through CDNow (remember them).

The Pixies cover of “Head On” is just awesomely raw and hard.  It’s also fairly unique because it breaks from the Pixies’ loud/quiet/loud dynamic and is just loud as hell for the entire two minutes and fourteen seconds.  When I saw the Pixies on their reunion tour, as soon as this song came on the entire place began vibrating in this really intensely awesome way.

By contrast, the original version is a more low-energy kind of droning.  I don’t mean that in a dismissive way, it’s just a different vibe.

I have a lot of tribute albums were more electronic acts will cover a rock band’s songs.  Turning them into more dance/groove tracks, which is totally fun and makes sense.  But the Pixies did the opposite and turn a mostly electronic-style song into a stadium rocker.