Well my two cents:
Sure. Nirvana were heavily influenced by Pixies, no question there. Cobain has spoken expressly of how he set out to emulate the Pixies' iconic soft-loud-soft-loud dynamic on Smells Like Teen Spirit, and you find the technique on a number of the most popular Nirvana songs. Indeed, those bands most heavily inspired by Nirvana (e.g. Bush) sought to repeat Nirvana's own use of the whole soft-loud stop-start thing. So a lineage leading back to Pixies is clearly established...
...but that's where it stops. The similarities end there. There's little else to tie Pixies' dark though generally upbeat, racy and fun-inflected groove to Nirvana's sinister, warped world of tortured and dread-fraught death rock. The stark contrast in mood makes the two bands for the most part entirely uncomparable.
Cobain penned some of the greatest mainstream rock hits of all time. In terms of pop credentials of course Nirvana must win the contest hands down. But in terms of raw songwriting ability, as can only be captured by the acid-test measure of overall consistency, Black Francis comes out of top. Nirvana had way too much fluff on their records. In Utero for instance was a great album, but not song-for-song. It is great when taken as a whole. Pixies on the other hand are great by the sum of their parts and the parts themselves.
Pixies are a better band for me on the whole, basing my judgment on diversity and consistency above all else.
|