The Still-Cool Classic Covers

The Pixies: Surfer Rosa (1988) The Spanish bar on the cover of the Pixies' full-length debut was built specially for the shot after photographer Simon Larbalestier couldn't find a location that bestowed the right "atmosphere." The woman is not an authentic topless flamenco dancer either (if such things exist), but a friend of a friend of the band. At one time the album was to be called Gigantic, but the band feared unintended assumptions about how it related to the cover image . . . and Surfer Rosa was born. -- MJ