The album Frank Black listened to until his “ears hurt”
Born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, Frank Black rose to fame as the leader of the alternative rock outfit Pixies. After four albums, the group went their separate ways in 1991, leaving Frank Black to embark on a sprawling solo career as Black Francis, in which he indulged his fascination with surrealism and guitar feedback. Here he discusses his love for an album he once listened to so many times it made his ears ache.
In 2014 Pixies announced their first album since 1991’s Trompe Le Monde. The first Pixies record not to feature Kim Deal on bass, Indie Cindy combined the three EPs Pixies released between 2013 and 2014, all of which were produced by Gil Norton, who had worked on Doolittle, Bossanova, and Trompe le Monde. On release, the album soared to number 23 on the US Billboard 200, making it Pixies’ highest-charting album so far.
That same year, Frank Black sat down with The Guardian to discuss the soundtrack of his life, records that shaped his youth and defined his character. Of the seven records Black selected, there were a good number of surprises. Who would have thought, for example, that Leon Russell’s self-titled 1970 album inspired Frank’s distinctive vocal style? “This was a big record for me,” he explained. “Sometimes when I’m singing – it occurred to me last night in Istanbul – I realise there’s a certain kind of vocalising I do that takes its cue from Leon Russell. He sang in a southern accent but it was very blown-out and exaggerated, very free and loose.”
After composing several songs that would later appear on Doolittle and graduating high school, Black enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he met and subsequently moved in with Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago. “Before I dropped out to start the Pixies, I was in university in Massachusetts. Joey Santiago and I rented a house in the second year. I took the dark, windowless room because it had a stereo, and I would just sit in the dark and listen to Iggy Pop and XTC records for hours and hours,” he recalled.
“The one I listened to the most, though, was [Elvis Costello’s] This Year’s Model. They had it on cassette tape at the music library in college, which I remember had these horrible hard plastic headphones, like something you might find in the Soviet Union in 1959. Instead of studying I’d go in there and listen to Elvis Costello over and over until my ears hurt and my head couldn’t take it anymore.”
Elvis Costello’s second studio album, This Year’s Model was released on Radar Records in 1978 and features some of the musician’s most memorable tracks, including singles ‘(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea’ and ‘Pump It Up’, On his previous album, 1977’s My Aim Is True, Costello had been backed by the American country outfit Clover. Looking for an edgier new wave sound, he decided to put together a permanent backing band. This was, of course, The Attractions. You can revisit ‘(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea’ below.