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. ' Released: March 20, 1989. ' Released: June 1, 1989 Doolittle is the second studio album by American band, released in April 1989 on. The album's offbeat and dark subject material, featuring references to, violence, and death, contrasts with the clean production sound achieved by the newly hired producer. Doolittle was the Pixies' first international release, with as the album's distributor in the United States and in Canada. Pixies released two singles from Doolittle, ' and ', both of which were chart successes on the US chart for.
The album itself reached number eight on the, an unexpected success for the band. In retrospect, album tracks such as ', 'Wave of Mutilation', 'Monkey Gone to Heaven', 'Gouge Away', and 'Hey' are highly acclaimed by critics, while the album, along with debut LP, is often seen as the band's strongest work.
Doolittle has continued to sell consistently well in the years since its release, and in 1995 was gold by the. The album has been cited as inspirational by many alternative artists, while numerous music publications have ranked it as one of the most influential albums ever. A 2003 poll of writers ranked Doolittle as the second-greatest album of all time, placed the album at 226 on its list of ' and ranked it as the fourth best album of the 80s.
Contents. Background Following their highly regarded but commercially unsuccessful 1988 album, the band embarked on a European tour with fellow Bostonians, before beginning a tour of North American states.
During this time, the group's frontman and principal songwriter, began to write new material for a future album, with songs such as 'Dead', 'Hey', 'Tame', and 'There Goes My Gun' emerging through the course of the year. Versions of the newly composed songs were recorded during several sessions for 's radio show in 1988, while a live recording of 'Hey' appeared on a free EP circulated with a 1988 edition of. Doolittle 's lyrics contain several biblical references—principal Pixies songwriter Black Francis wanted the album to be operatic like the biblical In mid-1988, the Pixies began to record demo sessions while on breaks from touring. The band headed to the Boston Eden Sound, which at the time comprised a small room in the basement of a. They recorded at the studio for a week, in circumstances similar to the previous year's sessions.
Francis gave the and upcoming album the provisional title of Whore, though he later claimed his natural father had originally suggested the name. Francis has clarified that he was thinking of the word 'in the more traditional sense. The operatic, biblical sense. As in the great '.
After completing the demo tape, band manager Ken Goes suggested two producers for the album; and American. The band had previously worked with Norton while recording the single version of ' in May 1988. Francis had no preference, although, head of the band's label 4AD, wanted Norton to produce the Pixies' next album. He was hired as producer, with Stasium not even approached for the position.
Norton arrived in Boston on October 31, 1988, and first visited Francis' apartment to review the album's demos. The two talked about arrangements, and spent two days intensively analyzing the album's songs. Norton learned to gauge Francis' reaction to changing arrangements, and later observed that the frontman 'doesn't like to do anything twice'. Norton spent a further two weeks in pre-production to familiarise himself with the Pixies' sound.
Recording and production Recording sessions for the album began on October 31, 1988, at in Boston, Massachusetts, at the time a professional 24-track studio. 4AD allowed the Pixies a budget of $40,000, excluding producer's fees. This was a modest sum for a 1980s major label album; however, it quadrupled the amount spent on the band's previous album, Surfer Rosa. Along with Norton, two assistant and two second assistants were assigned to the project. The sessions lasted three weeks, concluding on November 23, with 'nearly a song a day' being recorded. Production and mixing began on November 28.
The band relocated to, a residential studio in, to oversee production and record further tracks. Norton recruited Steve Haigler as, whom he had worked with. During production, Haigler and Norton added layers of guitars and vocals to songs, including guitars on ' and double tracking vocals on 'Wave of Mutilation'. During the recordings, Norton advised Francis to alter several songs; a noted example being 'There Goes My Gun' which was originally intended as a much faster -style song. However, at Norton's advice, Francis slowed down the tempo.
Norton's suggestions were not always welcome, and several instances of advice to add verses and increase track length contributed to the front man's building frustration. Eventually, Francis took Norton to a record store, where he handed him a copy of 's, in which most of the songs are about two minutes long. He told Norton, 'If it's good enough for Buddy Holly.' In a interview, Francis later recalled that 'this record is him trying to make us, shall I say, commercial, and us trying to remain somewhat grungy'.
Production continued until December 12, 1988, with Norton and Haigler adding extra effects, including to the mix. The master tapes were then sent for final post-production later that month. 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' is the seventh track from Doolittle. This sample contains the chorus, bridge and start of the second verse. Problems playing these files?
Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. While tracks such as 'Tame' and ' are fast and aggressive, and incorporate the band's trademark loud–quiet dynamic, other songs such as 'Silver', 'I Bleed', and 'Here Comes Your Man' reveal a quieter, slower and more melodic temperament. With Doolittle, the band began to incorporate further instruments into their sound; for instance, 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' features two and two. 'Tame' is based on a formula; including 's playing a ' over the main bass progression. 'I Bleed' is melodically simple, and is formed around a single rhythmical repetition. Some songs are influenced by other; while 'Crackity Jones' has a distinctly, and incorporates G ♯ and A triads over a C ♯ pedal, the song's, played by Francis, starts with an eighth-note downstroke typical of music. Lyrics The lyrical themes explored on Doolittle range from the surrealism of ', to the environmental catastrophe of '.
The women and whores of 'Mr. Grieves', 'Tame', and 'Hey' share space with the Biblical analogies of 'Dead' and 'Gouge Away'. Black Francis often claimed that Doolittle's lyrics were words which just 'fit together nicely', and that 'the point of the album is to experience it, to enjoy it, to be entertained by it'. Francis wrote all the material for the album with the exception of 'Silver', which he co-wrote with. The album's opening track 'Debaser' references, a theme that runs throughout the album. 'Debaser' alludes to and 's 1929 surrealist film, and the lyric 'slicing up eyeballs' refers to an early scene in the film. Surrealism heavily influenced Francis in his college years and throughout his career with the Pixies.
In 1989, Francis expressed his interest in surrealism and its influence on his songwriting method to the by stating 'I got into movies and Surrealism as an escape from reality. To me, Surrealism is totally artificial.
I recently read an interview with the director who said he had ideas and images but that he didn't know exactly what they meant. That's how I write.'
Another of the album's main themes is environmental catastrophe. 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' deals with man's destruction of the ocean and 'confusion of man's place in the universe'. As Francis put it: 'On one hand, it's this big organic toilet. Things get flushed and repurified or decomposed and it's this big, dark, mysterious place. It's also a very mythological place where there are octopus's gardens, the, and mermaids.' 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' is concerned with man's relationship to the divine, a theme shared with 'Mr.
Two songs on Doolittle are fashioned after Biblical stories: the story of in 'Dead', and and Delilah in 'Gouge Away'. Francis' fascination with Biblical themes can be traced back to his teenage years; when he was twelve, he and his parents joined an evangelical church linked to the. This background was to be an influence in Doolittle, where he referred to being 'six' and being 'seven' in 'Monkey Gone to Heaven'. Other songs explored eccentric subjects, such as in 'Wave of Mutilation', which Francis described as being about 'Japanese businessmen doing murder-suicides with their families because they'd failed in business, and they're driving off a pier into the ocean.' The sea and underwater themes of 'Wave of Mutilation', which also feature in 'Mr. Grieves' and 'Monkey Gone to Heaven', are explorations of one arena for man's death and destruction.
Ben Sisario points out that the album begins ('Debaser') and ends ('Gouge Away') with songs about violence being done to eyes. ' covers another offbeat subject; Francis' roommate in his student exchange trip to, who he described as a 'weird psycho gay roommate'. Doolittle also references more ostensibly conventional subjects.
'La La Love You', sung by the band's drummer, is a —though with its 'first base, second base, third base, home run' break, it's been referred to as 'a dig at the very idea of a love song'. Francis gave it to Lovering as a song to sing, 'like a thing'; Lovering at first refused to sing, but Norton said that soon he was unable to 'get him away from the microphone'. As well as lead vocals on 'La La Love You', Lovering played on 'Silver', with Deal playing slide guitar; this arrangement did not occur again.
Packaging and title. 'As Loud As Hell' by, from the Doolittle cover booklet. The image references lyrics in 'I Bleed'. Doolittle was the first album where, the Pixies' cover photographer, and, the band's cover artist, had access to the lyrics. According to Larbalestier, this 'made a fundamental difference'.
The surrealist and abstract images throughout the album booklet are linked to the album's content. 'Gouge Away' is represented by a picture of a spoon containing hair, laid across a woman's; a direct pictorial representation of heroin, with the spoon and the hair being horses. 'I Bleed' is referenced with the image 'As Loud As Hell'; the image shows 'a ringing bell', with a set of teeth; this references the line 'it shakes my teeth'. 'Walking with the Crustaceans' is a visual representation of the lyrics to 'Wave of Mutilation'. Larbalestier later commented that he was interested in 'early Surrealist stuff' at this time. During the recording sessions, Whore was discarded as a potential album title, after Oliver changed the cover artwork idea to a monkey and halo cover.
Francis later explained his rationale for the move: I thought people were going to think I was some kind of anti-Catholic or that I'd been raised Catholic and trying to get into this Catholic naughty-boy stuff. A monkey with a halo, calling it Whore, that would bring all kinds of shit that wouldn't be true. So I said I'd change the title. Francis then named the album Doolittle, from the 'Mr.
Grieves' lyric 'Pray for a man in the middle / One that talks like Doolittle'. Release In the months following Surfer Rosa, the Pixies' management fielded calls from a number of labels. Scout Peter Lubin first saw the band in October 1988, when they opened for. He immediately sought to convince the band to sign to his label. Pixies contracted to Elektra Records during a UK spring tour in 1989. Elektra followed by releasing a live promotional album, which contained two songs from their forthcoming album, 'Debaser' and 'Gouge Away', along with a selection of earlier material.
However Elektra had not yet attained distribution rights to the band's forthcoming album. 4AD, then a small British independent record label, held worldwide distribution rights to the Pixies, but did not have access to distribution outside of the United Kingdom; the band had had to import all its previous records from Europe. The Pixies' management sought international distribution; and while negotiations with Elektra and other record companies began in the third quarter of 1988, they were only completed just two weeks before Doolittle's release on April 2, 1989. Had already secured Canadian distribution rights by that time. Doolittle was released in the United Kingdom on April 17, 1989, and in the United States the following day. Throughout the States, helped by ' status, retail displays were constructed for the record, and ', the first single from the album, was released to for inclusion on playlists.
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Doolittle 's chart performance in the United States was unremarkable; the album entered the at number 171. However, with the help of -play of 'Monkey Gone to Heaven', Doolittle eventually rose to number 98 and spent two weeks in the Top 100. In Britain, the record reached number eight on the. This chart placing was an unexpected success for the band, as their previous two records, and Surfer Rosa, had failed to make such an impact on the British charts. In June 1989, 4AD released 'Here Comes Your Man' as the album's second single. It reached number three on the US chart and number 56 in the. It was not the last single from the album: in 1997, 'Debaser' was released as a single to promote the compilation.
Reception Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating 10/10 10/10 B+ Following its release, Doolittle sold steadily in America, and broke sales of 100,000 after six months. By early 1992, while the band were supporting on their, the album was selling 1,500 copies per week. The middle of 1993, two years after the band's last album, saw sales average 1,200 copies per week. Doolittle was gold by the in 1995. Ten years after the breakup, Doolittle was still selling between 500 and 1,000 copies a week; the reunion tour saw sales creep back up to 1,200 copies per week. At the end of 2005, best estimates put total sales in America at between 800,000 and one million copies. As of 2015, sales in the United States have exceeded 834,000 copies, according to.
Reaction to Doolittle was positive in general, with the album garnering praise from several major music publications. Writer Edwin Pouncey commented that 'the songs on Doolittle have the power to make you literally jump out of your skin with excitement'. Critic Peter Kane said that Doolittle 's 'carefully structured noise and straightforward rhythmic insistence makes perfect sense'. Tim Rolston of praised Doolittle as 'a scintillating rock'n'roll album' and the Pixies' 'finest half-hour so far'.
Several other publications ran positive reviews of the album, including the British music weekly, the, and the. 's of wrote, 'They're in love and they don't know why—with rock and roll, which is heartening in a time when so many college dropouts have lost touch with the verities', while concluding with the suggestion that 'getting famous too fast could ruin them'. However, Doolittle also received mixed reviews from several music critics. Said that 'Gil Norton's toy theatre production makes a drama out of what should have been a crisis'. Ran a hundred-word review of the album, including critic Joe Levy's comment 'the insanity less surreal and more silly, and the songs themselves more like songs and less like adventures'. Rolling Stone, reviewing the album in July 1989, gave the album three and a half stars.
Doolittle appeared on several end-of-year 'Best Album' lists; both Rolling Stone and The Village Voice placed the album tenth, and independent music magazines Sounds and Melody Maker both ranked the album as the second-best of the year. NME also ranked the album highly, placing it fourth in their end-of-year list. Legacy The sudden loud to quiet dynamic present on Doolittle, most notably in 'Tame', has been very influential on. After writing ', both and of thought: 'this really sounds like the Pixies. People are really going to nail us for this.'
Producer Gil Norton usually receives much credit for the album's dynamic, and is sought by bands seeking a similar sound. Former guitarist described Doolittle as less raw than Surfer Rosa but 'more listenable' and 'Here Comes Your Man' as a 'classic pop record'. Fellow alternative musician was 'in awe' of 'I Bleed' and 'Tame', and described Francis' writing as 'amazing'. The album was also included in the book. Band relationships During the recording of Doolittle, tensions between Francis and Deal became visible to band members and the production team.
Bickering and standoffs between the two marred the recording sessions and led to increased stress among the band members. John Murphy, Deal's husband at the time, later recalled that with Doolittle it 'went from just all fun to work'. Exhaustion from touring and from releasing three records in two years contributed to the friction.
This culminated at the end of the US post- Doolittle 'Fuck or Fight' tour, where they were too tired to attend the end-of-tour party. Soon afterwards the band announced that they were taking a break.
After they reconvened in 1990, Francis began to limit Deal's contributions to the band. He wrote and sang all the original material on the Pixies' two subsequent albums; 1990's and 1991's (both produced by Norton and mixed by Haigler). This breakdown in the relationship between Deal and Francis, first apparent during the recording of Doolittle, ultimately led to the band's breakup in late 1992 and early 1993. Accolades A range of music magazines have since acclaimed Doolittle as one of the quintessential alternative rock albums of the 1980s.
Rolling Stone, reviewing Doolittle again in 2002, gave the album a maximum score of five stars, remarking that it laid the 'groundwork for Nineties rock'. Doolittle has received a number of international accolades and is consistently noted as one of the best albums of the 1980s in any genre. The information regarding accolades attributed to Doolittle is taken from AcclaimedMusic.net.
Publication Country Accolade Year Rank Ireland Top 100 Albums 2006 34 Juice Australia The 50 Best Albums of All Time 1997 2 UK 100 Best Albums 2003 2 Panorama Norway The 30 Best Albums of the Year 19 1 US Top 100 Albums of the 1980s 2002 4 UK Ultimate Music Collection 2005. US 100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005 2005 36 US Best Albums of the 1980s 2012 34 (.) designates unordered lists. Doolittle 25 reissue The band announced that the album was reissued January 12, 2015, with two additional discs of material. Track listing All tracks were written by, except where noted. Title Writer(s) Length 1. 'Tame' 1:55 3. 'Wave of Mutilation' 2:04 4.
'I Bleed' 2:34 5. 'Dead' 2:21 7. Grieves' 2:05 9.
'La La Love You' 2:43 11. 13 Baby' 3:51 12. 'There Goes My Gun' 1:49 13. 'Hey' 3:31 14. 'Silver' Francis, 2:25 15.
'Gouge Away' 2:45 Doolittle 25 bonus discs Disc 2 – B-Sides & Peel Sessions No. Title Length 1. 'Dead' (Peel Session 9 October 1988) 3:18 2. 'Tame' (Peel Session 9 October 1988 (Previously unreleased)) 1:58 3. 'There Goes My Gun' (Peel Session 9 October 1988) 2:18 4.
'Manta Ray' (Peel Session 9 October 1988) 1:49 5. 'Into the White' (Peel Session 16 April 1989 (Previously unreleased)) 4:11 6. 'Wave of Mutilation' (Peel Session 16 April 1989) 2:31 7. 'Down to the Well' (Peel Session 16 April 1989) 2:14 8.
'Manta Ray' (Monkey Gone to Heaven B-side) 2:04 9. 'Weird at My School' (Monkey Gone to Heaven B-side) 1:58 10.
'Dancing The Manta Ray' (Monkey Gone to Heaven B-side) 2:14 11. 'Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)' (Here Comes Your Man B-side) 3:02 12. 'Into the White' (Here Comes Your Man B-side) 4:43 13.
'Bailey's Walk' (Here Comes Your Man B-side) 2:24 Disc 3 – Demos No. Title Length 1. 'Debaser' 3:00 2. 'Tame' (previously unreleased) 2:01 3. 'Wave of Mutilation' (first demo; previously unreleased) 2:04 4. 'I Bleed' (previously unreleased) 1:46 5. 'Here Comes Your Man' (1986 demo) 3:07 6.
'Dead' (previously unreleased) 1:35 7. 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' (previously unreleased) 2:52 8. Grieves' (previously unreleased) 1:42 9. 'Crackity Jones' (previously unreleased) 1:21 10. 'La La Love You' (previously unreleased) 2:08 11.
13 Baby – VIVA LA LOMA RICA' (first demo; previously unreleased) 2:17 12. 'There Goes My Gun' (previously unreleased) 1:29 13. 'Hey' (first demo; previously unreleased) 3:22 14. 'Silver' (previously unreleased) 2:11 15. 'Gouge Away' (previously unreleased) 1:42 16. 'My Manta Ray Is All Right' (previously unreleased) 2:03 17. 'Santo' (previously unreleased) 2:17 18.
'Weird at My School' (first demo; previously unreleased) 1:53 19. 'Wave of Mutilation' (previously unreleased) 1:03 20. 13 Baby' 3:07 21. 'Debaser' (first demo; previously unreleased) 3:37 22.
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Wave Of Mutilation: Best Of Pixies
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4AD tries, tries again with Wave of Mutilation: The Best of the Pixies, the second Pixies best-of they've released since the band broke up in 1992 and the companion piece to the long-awaited, simultaneously released DVD Pixies. Lessons have been learned from 1997's half-baked Death to the Pixies: this compilation's track listing is in more or less chronological order (although Surfer Rosa's 'Where Is My Mind?' Pops up in the middle of the album, after a string of Doolittle tracks), which helps the flow of the collection; since each of the Pixies' albums had its own distinctive feel, the cut'n'paste approach of the previous best-of didn't always serve the songs it collected. More importantly, Wave of Mutilation boasts 23 songs, as opposed to the 17 on the best-of disc on Death to the Pixies. While, theoretically, 23 tracks should be enough to capture most, if not all, of the band's definitive moments, that's not quite the case here. The collection does a good job of compiling the band's singles, two excellent B-sides ('Into the White' and 'Winterlong'), and many of their key album tracks, but those are so numerous that, for the second time, more than a few of the Pixies' best songs have been left off of their best-of album. The picks from Doolittle are more or less perfect (although including the wonderfully creepy 'I Bleed' certainly would've earned some extra credit), but several near-essential songs from each of their other albums are missing in action.
Surfer Rosa's 'Cactus' and 'River Euphrates are at the top of that list. Come On Pilgrim's 'I've Been Tired' and 'Levitate Me' are missed nearly as much, even though including them would bring the total songs from the eight-song mini-album that appear on Wave of Mutilation to five (making a case for Come On Pilgrim to be considered the Pixies' most consistent - if not best - work).
Not coincidentally, the albums that get the shortest shrift on the collection, Bossanova and Trompe le Monde, have also been downplayed in the set lists of the Pixies' reunion concerts. Yes, those two albums aren't quite as strong or immediate as what preceded them.
And yes, 'Velouria,' 'Allison,' and 'Dig for Fire,' and 'U-Mass,' 'Alec Eiffel,' and 'Planet of Sound' are good selections from Bossanova and Trompe le Monde. However, the best moments from these albums (that don't already appear on the compilation) reflect the atmospheric sound that made them so unique in the Pixies' catalog. Bossanova's 'The Happening' or 'All Over the World' would've been apt nods to the band's sci-fi fetish, while 'Letter to Memphis,' 'The Sad Punk,' 'Motorway to Roswell,' or the title track from Trompe le Monde also would've worked well on the collection.
One final, more minor flaw is the collection's bright, shiny artwork, which recalls the mid-'90s work that the design studio v23 did for 4AD artists like Belly and the Breeders. It's attractive, but a little faceless and lacking the dramatic surrealism of Simon Larbalastier's photos, which clothed the Pixies' albums in what seemed like stills from the dreams and nightmares unspooling in the band's songs. In some ways, for die-hard Pixies fans it's easier to miss what isn't here than to appreciate what is; then again, fans can (and probably have) made their own master mixes of what they consider the Pixies' greatest hits. Even though the best way to experience the band is still devouring each of their albums, Wave of Mutilation: The Best of the Pixies is intended as a primer to their work, and - fannish nitpicking aside - it's a far better overview than what was available before. Heather Phares.