Frank Black, the legendary frontman of the Pixies, played a series of shows in early in 2025 where he performed his iconic solo album, Teenager Of The Year, in its entirety.
Originally released in May 1994, Teenager Of The Year has become a touchstone in Frank Black’s solo career and is often regarded as “the best album the Pixies never made.” The album’s sprawling 22 tracks showcase Black’s genius for blending quirky lyricism, inventive melodies, and a boundless sense of musical exploration.
Critics and fans alike have celebrated Teenager Of The Year over the years. Pitchfork included the album in its "Top 100 Albums of the 1990s," noting that “beneath its veneer lie moments brilliant enough to rival any of the Pixies’ work, and Black’s greatest lyrical achievement.” The album is also enshrined in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, while The Quietus remarked in 2014, “Teenager Of The Year feels like a lost Pixies album in the way Ram feels like a lost Beatles album. It’s colossal, it teems with innovation.”
Black shared the origins of the album’s title and his creative journey:
“Sometime in the early ‘80s, I’d have to look up the date, I matriculated high school. This school held an awards banquet for some of the departing students. I received an award called the TEENAGER OF THE YEAR award; my brother received the same award the following year. Our award was a 50-dollar credit for textbooks, a TEENAGER OF THE YEAR medallion (my mother still has this), and also the banquet hall dinner, soup to nuts. My brother and I had no complaint about the award (it was given for being all-around-good-guy as best as we could determine). But for such a grand title to be given as TEENAGER OF THE YEAR, I felt the glory had not been amplified enough.”
Black went on to recount the album’s turbulent recording process in 1993, which included forest fires, earthquakes, and even temporarily losing the tapes due to the Northridge earthquake. Despite the chaos, he and producer Eric Drew Feldman’s “addictive musical buffet” resulted in one of the most ambitious albums of his career. “We tried to make it grand. 22 in 62. I called it TEENAGER OF THE YEAR. It is 30 years old now, and the original band will perform the record at various venues in early 2025. 4AD has remastered the LP for a fresh printing. Enjoy.”
Photos by Steve Sym from performance at The Metro in Chicago on January 25, 2025
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