Under the Radar

Jonas Bjerre of MEW & Joey Santiago of PIXIES

Jonas Bjerre of the Danish band Mew first got into American alt-rock legends Pixies as a teenager when one of his friends gave him all of their albums up to that point at the same time. “I just listened to them in random order and love all of them so much,” he remembers. Bjerre settled on their 1989-released sophomore full-length album Doolittle as his favorite of Pixies’ albums and eventually his all-time favorite album by any artist, although it could have just as easily been any of the Boston-formed band’s other releases.

“I don’t know what it is about Doolittle?” Bjerre wonders. “There’s just so much clever, creativeness about it. But then ask me tomorrow and my favorite might end up being one of their other records. It’s weird because a lot of the music I listened to at that time, I don’t really listen to it any more. Whereas Doolittle is something that’s just stayed with me. Even all the bands that came after that record and tried to rip them off, no one came close. Pixies are just so unique. I accept every song they’ve ever made almost like it was gospel. Just soak it all in. Everything has a spark of inspiration to it, and I can’t say that about any other band.”

Bjerre says he appreciates the evolution the band made with each album, as well as the pace through to the March 1988 release of their debut full-length and the April 1989 release of

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