{"id":494161,"date":"2026-01-05T13:32:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/494161\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T13:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T13:32:19","slug":"the-10-albums-that-shaped-pixies-joey-santiago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/494161\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 albums that shaped Pixies Joey Santiago"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Beatles \u2013 \u20181967 \u2013 1970 (The Blue Album)\u2019 \"George<\/p>\n

The Beatles remain one of the most influential bands of all time<\/a>, and it seems that there is no artist who hasn\u2019t been somewhat inspired by their music. <\/p>\n

Joey Santiago, despite dabbling in styles that don\u2019t sound a whole lot like the Fab Four, is happy to admit just how much the band inspired him. Rather than pick a specific album by them, he opted instead for a greatest hits compilation, and when you\u2019ve got as many as the Beatles have, why not?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the second half of their greatest hits, the first one was the Red Album 1962-1966. I had the Red Album before the Blue,\u201d he said, \u201cWhile I loved the Red, the Blue was just the better era. The recordings were more adventurous. \u2018I Am The Walrus\u2019 just blew me away. My brother gave this to me at Xmas when I was 10.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones \u2013 \u2018Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol 2)\u2019 \"Keith<\/p>\n

When The Rolling Stones\u2019 manager, Andrew Loog Oldham<\/a>, saw the amount of success that The Beatles were enjoying, he opted to try and get in on it. He did this by creating a band who were the extreme version of the Fab Four, with longer hair, louder clothes, and more flamboyant music and performance styles. <\/p>\n

Throughout the heights of Beatlemania, you had the Rolling Stones close behind, completely dominating the musical world. They put out so much that it\u2019s hard, once again, to choose a specific album to focus on, so Santiago opted for another greatest hits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re young, the greatest hits seemed like the biggest bang for your paper-route money,\u201d he said, \u201cThe octagon-shaped cover drew me to the album. \u20182000 Light Years From Home\u2019 was my favorite. I had a pair of headphones and pot from this point on. Backward sound effects, synthesizers and dreamy orchestrations. What more can you ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Velvet Underground \u2013 \u2018The Velvet Underground\u2019 \"Lou<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea why I liked this album,\u201d said Santiago when discussing the self-titled offering from The Velvet Underground<\/a>. He\u2019s not on his own with these feelings either. The band were famed for their versatile approach to music, which allowed them to embrace whatever direction they wanted creatively, and left fans in a strange musical limbo which was both wonderful and unpredictable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By embracing this kind of varied approach to music, a lot of fans, who might have previously only dabbled in the same few genres, found themselves suddenly listening to sounds that they were unfamiliar with. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt like I was opening up to other forms of music,\u201d said Santiago, \u201cThe whole album was opening my fragile eggshell mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Stooges \u2013 \u2018Fun House\u2019 \"Fun<\/p>\n

The term punk<\/a> was coined towards the back end of the \u201870s when bands such as the Sex Pistols started making a name for themselves. While this was officially when the movement began, there were bands championing the sound and attitude that the genre was built on long before John Lydon came along.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One band who were out-punking punk before the word had even been uttered was The Stooges. They have a sound which people still recognise as ahead of its time, and for a lot of young people when it was originally released, it was the only music that mattered. Just ask Santiago. <\/p>\n

\u201cGreat guitars. Fuck it attitude. Oh, I been dirt and I don\u2019t care,\u201d he said, \u201cThat\u2019s the way to live it at that time at a university we were planning on leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wes Montgomery \u2013 \u2018A Day in the Life\u2019 \"The<\/p>\n

The Beatles continue to live on in the hearts of fans wherever they go in their lives, and sometimes, that can lead to unexpected discoveries. This is what happened with Santiago and Wes Montgomery\u2019s album A Day in the Life. He originally picked it up because it had the same title as the iconic Beatles track, but he continued listening to the album because he suddenly found himself obsessed with jazz. <\/p>\n

\u201cI grabbed this album because of The Beatles title. It was different,\u201d he said, \u201cAn intro to jazz for a rock-and-roll fan. Later on, the octave guitar would find its way to my playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jimi Hendrix \u2013 \u2018Are You Experienced\u2019\"Jimi<\/p>\n

Has there ever been a guitarist who has captured the hearts and minds of music lovers more than someone like Jimi Hendrix? The moment he flew over to London, crowds everywhere were left totally in awe of what he was able to achieve with a bit of bravado and a six-string. This quality carried over into his studio work, too, which birthed some truly exceptional records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first track was the one that I clung to at the time, \u2018Purple Haze\u2019. What an intro. Very angular. I had to learn it,\u201d said Santiago, \u201cThis was the time I had my first electric guitar. My father smashed my acoustic when I came home sh*t-faced. A hidden blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

AC\/DC \u2013 \u2018Back In Black\u2019 \"Back<\/p>\n

AC\/DC are a band who are often misunderstood by music lovers, as people think that they\u2019re overly simple. This couldn\u2019t be further from the truth, as while the band may have been responsible for some riffs that only consist of a few chords, there is nothing simple about the rugged sound they manage to achieve. It takes a lot to create such consistent and unique music, and it\u2019s a talent that Santiago was in awe of. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fuck it years. I saw them play when this album came out,\u201d he said, \u201cThey embraced the suburban angst I had. It was a rebellion to what my friends were listening to, \u201960s hippie music, the classic rock at the time. Liking this band was dangerous. LOL. I rode my bike to the hockey stadium they were playing. Got there too early. \u2018Shoot To Thrill\u2019 bridge guitar mimicked a synthesizer to my ears. Very cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Neil Young \u2013 \u2018Harvest\u2019 \"\"\/<\/p>\n

While he might be a controversial figure at times, there is no escaping the fact that Neil Young<\/a> is one of the best songwriters out there. <\/p>\n

Every single aspect of the human psyche has been covered in some way, shape, or form within Young\u2019s music. These songs resonated with Santiago from a young age, tapping into emotions that he couldn\u2019t even assign a label to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometime in high school. A typical teenager who wanted to leave home,\u201d said Santiago, \u201cIn retrospect, I started experiencing bouts of depression. \u2018Out on the Weekend\u2019 captured every feeling I had in four minutes. That pedal steel guitar was a strange sensation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Link Wray \u2013 \u2018At His Best\u2019 \"\u2018Fallin\u2019<\/p>\n

The albums that make an impact on you and that you can reference as influences aren\u2019t always good. While there are plenty of Link Wray fans out there<\/a>, Santiago doesn\u2019t remember this album because of its musical gumption; rather, he recounts the record because it reminds him of the early days of working with Charles Thompson. Wasted nights spent getting high and playing with electronics might have seemed silly at the time, but that, combined with this LP, is all they needed to begin working on what would become an iconic band.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCharles and I shared an apartment when we were taking summer courses at UMass,\u201d recalled Santiago, \u201cWe did get high a lot and had a laugh listening to this album. We were taking apart an amp with a butter knife, thinking we could fix it. We put it back together and had left over parts. If you really think about it, that\u2019s how we approached music. Take it apart and discard some parts whether it\u2019s needed or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Pixies \u2013 \u2018Bossanova\u2019 \"\"\/<\/p>\n

I sometimes grow frustrated at artists who put lists like these together and don\u2019t include their own records. You might have been inspired by the bands you grew up listening to, but that\u2019s not where your influences start and stop. You\u2019re equally influenced by your own career and the work that you put out. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a relief to see Santiago include a Pixies album on this list, although the choice might surprise a lot of people. \u201cYeah, it happened to us, too,\u201d he said, \u201cAnother band that no longer gets along<\/a> and yet manages to put out something good. The myth of bands getting along like The Monkees has been debunked.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Beatles \u2013 \u20181967 \u2013 1970 (The Blue Album)\u2019 The Beatles remain one of the most influential bands…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":494162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,222491,975,8384,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-494161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-joey-santiago","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-pixies","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115842747650423397","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}