Release
Surfer Rosa was released in the UK by 4AD on March 21, 1988, entering the UK Indie Chart the following week. It spent 60 weeks in the chart, peaking at number 2. Until August of that year it was only available in the U.S. as an import. Although the label held worldwide distribution rights to the Pixies, they did not have access to a distributor outside the UK. When 4AD signed a distribution deal with Rough Trade's U.S. branch, the album was released on vinyl and cassette as part of the Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim release. While Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim has remained in print on CD in the UK, subsequent U.S. releases have seen the two released on separate CDs. These separate releases first appeared in January 1992, when Elektra Records first reissued the band's first two albums. After 4AD reacquired rights to the band's U.S. distribution, they released both as separate CDs. Surfer Rosa was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2005, 17 years after its original release.
"Gigantic" was the only single taken from Surfer Rosa. The track and its B-side, "River Euphrates", were rerecorded by Gil Norton at Blackwing Studios in London, early in May 1988. The remixed single was well met by critics. The single failed to sell, and spent just one week at number 93 on the UK Singles Chart. Despite the poor commercial performance of both Surfer Rosa and "Gigantic", Ivo Watts-Russell has said that the response to the album was "times five" compared with Come On Pilgrim.
Read more about this topic: Surfer Rosa
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)