had this debate recently with a friend of mine: which is the better band? i said melvins. but my friend was rather insistent that the pixies were better. anyhow...

melvins vs pixies??

(someone, in the velvets vs ccr poll, argued for the velvets, citing "influence" as a factor... along these lines, i should point out that the pixies gave us oasis, weezer, modest mouse, arctic monkeys, etc, while the melvins gave us neurosis, earth, mastodon, eyehategod, high on fire, isis, crowbar, boris, etc; this leaves us with the melvins as the overwhelmingly "more important" band).

Although I haven't really followed them since the mid-90s, I love the Melvins. And live, there's no questions: Melvins were 100-fold better live than the Pixies.

But the Pixies are my favorite band.

As far as what your friend said, I don't hear any sonic similarities between those two bands whatsoever. They couldn't be more different.

This thunderdome does make sense in one regard: if you put the Pixies and the Melvins into a blender, you'd end up with Nirvana, who managed to mix the two influences without sound derivative of either one.

the Melvins by ten miles.
This is not even a drizzledome.
No contest

Melvins, but a country mile. The pixies were a kind of neato nifty college rock band. Surfer Rosa was a good record, but that's all I ever cared about from them.


The Melvins, on the other hand are one of my favorite bands. They were my gateway band into heavy music. They are like all the good parts of metal distilled into one band. Continually evolving and entertaining.

When I bought Doolittle in my early high school years I honestly had to force myself to listen to it more than a few cursory times. Not much has changed. Doolittle is an incredibly unbalanced album; saved only by five or six tracks, but ultimately weighed down by the other two thirds of the album, discouraging me from taking even an idle interest in that album.

My feelings on this album extend to the Pixies' overall output.

The Melvins, on the other hand, are always appealing to me.

Melvins. Not even close.

I don't give a fuck about either one.

I have seen both a few times and enjoyed myself but it's nothing I'd get excited about or want to listen to at home.

The Pixies have some real good pop songs, The Melvins have a lot of interesting twists and turns in their history.

Kim Deal seems like someone I'd get along with.

The Melvins put out unlistenable noise once and awhile, which I like.

Eh, it's a toss up.

Melvins I guess.

I like the Melvins a lot, but the Pixies were my favourite band way back in the early 90´s, when I was first getting into music, and their records will always do it for me. The Pixies.

Melvins win this by a country mile.

Both bands put out 5/5 material and 0/5 material.

Hard to rate them both.