Trompe le Monde

"Head On" is a cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain track. It was released as a single and reached number 6 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in the U.S.

"U-Mass" is a song about the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where Black Francis met Joey Santiago before dropping out to form Pixies. In a 2001 interview, Santiago recalled that the original guitar riff was written while they were still enrolled at the school.^[3]

Tracks like "Planet of sound", "Trompe le Monde", "Space (I believe in)" and "Subbacultcha" recall a heavier metal leaning sound. Planet of sound was composed in Drop D tuning.^[4]

The album name comes from the title of the first track, "Trompe le Monde", a French phrase (pronounced [tʁɔ̃p lə mɔ̃d]) meaning "Fool the World".^[5] Unlike previous albums, the title of the album comes from the name of a song (rather than a song lyric), and is a play on the French phrase "Trompe-l'œil", a painting technique in which the painter fools the viewer into thinking objects presented are real, and also "trompe la mort", which means "daredevil" in French. On some versions of the CD, the title is erroneously printed as Tromp le Monde on the disc itself.^{[citation needed]}

More information Review scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Blender	[2]
Chicago Tribune	[6]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[7]
Los Angeles Times	[8]
NME	7/10[9]
Pitchfork	9.4/10[10]
Q	[11]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[12]
The Village Voice	A−[13]

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Michael Bonner of Lime Lizard described Trompe le Monde as "one of the best albums that you may very well ever hear" and "a strong contender for best album of the 20th century".^[14]

In a retrospective review, AllMusic writer Heather Phares noted the reduced role of Kim Deal, calling it "essentially Black Francis' solo debut".^[5] Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger named Trompe le Monde his ninth favorite album of the 1990s, describing it as "clean-lined sci-fi popmetal, perpetually underrated."^[15]