{"id":591728,"date":"2026-05-19T03:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/591728\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T03:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T03:02:12","slug":"the-1993-hit-single-that-broke-up-the-pixies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/591728\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1993 hit single that broke up the Pixies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pixies<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Discogs<\/p>\n

Mon 18 May 2026 23:00, UK <\/p>\n

Before the 1990s\u2019 grunge explosion and the Lollapalooza heyday, it was Boston\u2019s Pixies<\/a> paving the way for the alternative rock revolution.<\/p>\n

Not that they were operating in isolation. Ever since punk\u2019s meteoric crater, a potent musical underground was alive and kicking across the 1980s while the day\u2019s hair metal was cock rocking on MTV, the likes of H\u00fcsker D\u00fc<\/a>, Sonic Youth, The Replacements, and REM all scoring an essential soundtrack to rock fans fatigued of the decade\u2019s spandex brigade.<\/p>\n

But it was Pixies that forged the most direct link between the college \u2018left of the dial\u2019 rock and the later Seattle surge. While faring much better commercially over in the UK, and signing to the country\u2019s 4AD label, Pixies first run of albums laid out a blueprint for future Nirvanas and Smashing Pumpkins to follow, frontman Black Francis\u2019 lyrical surrealism setting the stage for personal, idiosyncratic songcraft as well as pioneering the \u2018quiet-loud\u2019 dynamics often shared between Francis and bassist Kim Deal.<\/p>\n

Deal was always nagged by her second-fiddle status in the group. While co-writing fan favourites like \u2018Gigantic\u2019 and \u2018Silver\u2019, Francis ran a tight ship and ensured the lion\u2019s share of the Pixies\u2019 material was under his creative control.<\/p>\n

Eager to unleash her own songs on the world, Deal formed The Breeders with Throwing Muses\u2019 Tanya Donelly and cut 1990\u2019s Pod with Steve Albini in the engineering chair<\/a>, finishing only a month before Pixies\u2019 Bossanova was due to start recording in earnest.<\/p>\n

Tensions continued to flare between the two, eking out 1991\u2019s Trompe le Monde and winning several dates as U2\u2019s support band on the North American leg of the Zoo TV Tour the next year, yet, following their final show at Vancouver\u2019s Pacific Coliseum in April, the Pixies decided to hit the brakes and enter an informal hiatus period.<\/p>\n

It turned out that Francis held no intentions of returning. It was during the sessions of The Breeders\u2019 biggest hit that news of Pixies\u2019 unilateral dissolution reached Deal after Francis had informed BBC Radio 5 that the band were over without any prior communication, her twin sister, who\u2019d joined the band, sharing the news. <\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the studio literally recording \u2018Cannonball\u2019<\/a> when Kelley came down the hallway and said, \u2018Pixies broke up,\u2019\u201d Deal recalled to NME in 2019. \u201cI said, \u2018OK, get out of my way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

No more Pixies day job and stockpiling songs. Now free to devote full energy to The Breeders, Deal and the band managed to cut 1993\u2019s Last Splash and sell platinum levels of sales, owed in part to the key opening slots for Nirvana post-Nevermind and \u2018Cannonball\u2019 enjoying massive rotation on the day\u2019s MTV, winning more mainstream attention than Pixies ever did.<\/p>\n

Some reunion dates did take place on and off, and Deal contributed to 2004\u2019s \u2018Bam Thwok\u2019 comeback, but declined to return to the fold for the big, Indie Cindy return in 2013. Busy with her own Last Splash reunion tour at the time, \u2018Cannonball\u2019s alt-rock hurtle boomed out of The Breeders\u2019 projectile with such force she still didn\u2019t need her own Pixies band 20 years on.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Discogs Mon 18 May 2026 23:00, UK Before the 1990s\u2019 grunge explosion and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[198514,52388,96,123131,128,52389,202453,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-591728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-198514","tag-black-francis","tag-entertainment","tag-kim-deal","tag-music","tag-pixies","tag-the-breeders","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}