Surfer Rosa

If anything, Surfer Rosa is one of the few albums that could truly come out today and sound just as contemporary as it did in the late 1980s.

Steve Albini, not yet an alt-rock household name, recorded the unstoppable Surfer Rosa, honing the Pixies' sound to scalpel sharpness. The songs are harder and, in places, more fragmented than Pilgrim's, but incredible tunes poke out from behind the wall of smashed bottles and rusty needles.