The Pixies - Death to the Pixies (4AD) In fairness to 4AD, they've never really been one to flog a dead horse - only now has this compilation come on stream, and the Pixies have been dead for well over six years. Only now, when it's far too late. In a way that could never have been believed possible, the Pixies have dated. Why was it that everybody thought that they would be the Doors of the eighties, that they would be resurrected by young students every couple of years. Now, it's almost impossible to believe that this will ever happen. "Death to the Pixies" only emphasises what a terrible waste their splitting up was - all the rubbish that followed from Frank Black, and Kim Deal, could never ever have compared to the Pixies as they were. The title sums it up, the Pixies are dead, and well and truly so. Unfortunately unlike Jim Morrison, Black Francis did not die in a bath in Paris, he's already putting on a lot of weight. He's still around to remind us that time has passed. It's reminiscent of Marlon Brando and James Dean. Dean died young, and will be forever a legend. Marlon Brando grew old and fat, and will always be remembered as such. Time has moved too swiftly for the Pixies, and their original fans have moved onto different things - the bands that followed in the Pixies footsteps sounded tired and derivative, but at the same time brand new avenues in music were opened. This album only serves as a reminder for what was lost. The emphasis of the record is wrong too, focusing too much on Doolittle, and too little on "Trompe Le Monde" (the least dated of the albums). Not to mention the fact that the choice of tracks is dubious, to say the least. by Kenneth Foxe