Pixies Loyalists Compete, but Only 1 Scores Minotaur Box

"The Minotaur is not for someone who hasn’t heard the Pixies first. If that’s what you’re after, it might be more appropriate to burn it off the internet for free," Black Francis told Wired.com as we launched a giveaway of the rock legend's mother of all music box sets.

See also: Minotaur Maps Pixies' Massive Pop-Punk InfluenceWe hewed close to that party line when scrutinizing the clamoring comments in search of Pixies street cred, looking for a superfan worthy of what Black Francis called an expensive objet d'art. It was exceedingly hard to pick only one winner of Minotaur after hearing how significantly the Pixies changed so many lives.

But Artists in Residence and 4AD supplied Wired.com with only one of the signed $495 limited editions, so our hands were tied. Our apologies to those deserving fans we had to pass over.

The official winner of the giveaway is the aptly named SurferRosa, who wrote the moving entry below:

I first discovered the Pixies at the age of 15, growing up in Africa on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I heard them late one night on the radio, played by a DJ who used to get bootlegs of live recordings. I was transfixed from that moment onwards. I wrote their lyrics on my bedroom walls and used to stay up late falling asleep to the radio for waiting desperately in hope of another live bootleg, which in turn opened me up to a world of underground rock.

I paid extortionate prices for their imported CDs and treated them like rare artifacts. When they split up I gave up hope of ever seeing them live, and left it at that, gradually losing interest in music, falling into a deep apathy. Then, on my 30th birthday, they announced that they where reforming and I was actually for once living in a country where I could see them. After watching their tickets sell out in front of my own eyes thanks to dial-up internet, I finally snagged a ticket to see them and sobbed with joy and amazement all the way through their show.

I’d had an epiphany: What had been missing for far too long was music — music with a raw soul. They brought me back in touch with who I am and reignited my obsession with music, in short changing my life, and for that I am eternally grateful. I’d love it if you picked me; the box set would serve as a fitting reminder to not forget who I am.

While there were a great many convincing arguments of Pixies fandom offered by readers, especially FatherCrow, DarthBraun, bone_machine, muttler, perfectecho and powderlurker, it is SurferRosa's tale of unrequited love from Africa that sealed the deal.

Back when the Pixies first exploded into our eardrums, most fans in America couldn't be bothered, enamored as they were of Guns N' Roses and other undeserving bands. Across the pond, the Pixies received more fanfare, airplay and coverage than they did here in the states, which is a sad pill America will have to swallow for awhile.

But in Africa? If you heard the Pixies at all in Africa in the '80s, you pretty much leapfrogged fandom in Europe and America, to start. But despite everything SurferRosa had to go to just to listen to the band, it is her description of the impact its music had on her identity and music in general that nailed it for her.

So congrats, SurferRosa! The rest of you? Thanks for sharing your intimate Pixies stories, invented and otherwise, with Wired.com. I leave you with the band's finest version of "Tame," from the same Brixton live performance that graces Minotaur. Turn it up and let it bleed.

See also:

• Minotaur Maps Pixies’ Massive Pop-Punk Influence
• Top 5 Albums to Blast Into Space
• Video: Pixies + Dali = Antonio Banderas?
• Soundtrack: Large Paranoia Collider!
• Does M. Night Shyamalan Have a Thing for Pixies?
• Lost Joins Shyamalan’s Pixies Lovefest