Broken Face

Steve Albini recorded Surfer Rosa in two weeks for less than $10,000, and the result sounds like a band let loose in a room and told to do exactly what they wanted. The drums are enormous, the guitars raw, Black Francis's vocals unhinged in ways that felt genuinely new in 1988.

Broken Face is one of the album's more propulsive tracks — the Pixies' quiet-loud dynamic already in place, Black Francis shifting registers without warning, Kim Deal's bass holding the center. The song is built on a riff that sounds like it was found rather than written.

Surfer Rosa is one of the most influential albums in indie rock history. Cobain cited it before recording Nevermind; Radiohead cited it; most guitar bands of the 1990s and beyond have processed its lessons.