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Doolittle (album)
Encyclopedia
Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. While tracks such as "Tame" and "Crackity Jones
" 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 violin
s and two cello
s. Several tracks on Doolittle are constructed around simple repeating chord progression
s.
"Tame" is based on a three chord
formula; including Joey Santiago
's playing a "Hendrix chord
" over the main bass progression. "I Bleed" is melodically simple, and is formed around a single rhythmical repetition. Some songs are influenced by other genres of music
; while "Crackity Jones" has a distinctly Spanish sound
, and incorporates G and A triads over a C pedal, the song's rhythm guitar
, played by Francis, starts with an eighth-note downstroke typical of punk rock
music.
", to the environmental catastrophe of "Monkey Gone to Heaven
". 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 Doolittles 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 Kim Deal
.
The album's opening track "Debaser" references surrealism
, a theme that runs throughout the album. "Debaser" alludes to Luis Buñuel
and Salvador Dalí
's 1929 surrealist film Un chien andalou
, 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 New York Times by stating "I got into avant-garde
movies and Surrealism as an escape from reality. [...] To me, Surrealism is totally artificial. I recently read an interview with the director David Lynch
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 Bermuda Triangle
, Atlantis
, and mermaids." "Monkey Gone to Heaven" is concerned with man's relationship to the divine, a theme shared with "Mr. Grieves".
Two songs on Doolittle are fashioned after Biblical stories: the story of David and Bathsheba
in "Dead", and Samson 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 Assemblies of God
. This background was to be an influence in Doolittle, where he referred to the Devil being "six" and God
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 song's opening phrase, "Cease to resist", is a reference to The Beach Boys
' 1968 song "Never Learn Not to Love", their rewritten version of Charles Manson
's composition "Cease to Exist."
"Wave of Mutilation"'s sea and underwater themes, 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. "Crackity Jones
" covers another offbeat subject; Francis' roommate in his student exchange trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico
, 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 David Lovering, is a love song
—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 Ringo
thing"; Lovering at first refused to sing, but Norton said that soon he was unable "get him away from the microphone." As well as lead vocals on "La La Love You", Lovering played bass guitar
on "Silver", with Deal playing slide guitar; this arrangement did not occur again.
Doolittle was the first album where Simon Larbalestier
, the Pixies' cover photographer, and Vaughan Oliver
, the band's cover artist, had access to the lyrics. According to Larbalestier, this "made a fundamental difference." The availability of the lyrics allowed the art and photographs to be more closely tied to the content of the album; the cover references the themes in "Monkey Gone to Heaven", and depicts a stuffed monkey
, with a halo
and the numbers five, six and seven above it ("if man is five... then the Devil is six... then God is seven").
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 torso
; 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 "Wave of Mutilation"'s lyrics. 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:
Francis then named the album Doolittle, from the "Mr. Grieves" lyric "Pray for a man in the middle / One that talks like Doolittle." This was in the tradition of previous Pixies albums; both Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa used song lyrics for the album title.
A&R
scout Peter Lubin first saw the band in October 1988, when they opened for The Jesus and Mary Chain
. 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 Doolittle while 4AD, then a small British independent record label, held worldwide distribution rights. The problem facing 4AD was the fact that they did not have access to distribution outside of the United Kingdom; up to this point the band had to import all of their 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 Doolittles release on April 2, 1989. PolyGram
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 Elektra Records
' major label
status, retail displays were constructed for the record, and "Monkey Gone to Heaven
", the first single from the album, was released to radio station
s for inclusion on playlists. Doolittles chart performance in the United States was unremarkable; the album entered the Billboard 200
at number 171. However, with the help of college radio
-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 UK Album Chart. This chart placing was an unexpected success for the band, as their previous two records, Come On Pilgrim
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 Modern Rock Tracks
chart and number 56 in the UK Singles Chart
. It was not the last single from the album: in 1997, "Debaser" was released as a single to promote the Death to the Pixies
compilation.
on their Zoo TV Tour
, the album was selling 1,500 copies per week. The middle of 1993, two years after the band's last album, Trompe le Monde
, saw sales average 1,200 copies per week. Doolittle was certified
gold by the Recording Industry Association of America
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.
Reaction to Doolittle was positive in general, with the album garnering praise from several major music publications. NME
commented that "the songs on Doolittle have the power to make you literally jump out of your skin with excitement." Q
, giving the album four stars out of five, said that Doolittle' s "carefully structured noise and straightforward rhythmic insistence makes perfect sense." Tim Rolston, of the Daily Telegraph praised Doolittle as "a scintillating rock'n'roll album" and the Pixies' "finest half-hour so far." Other publications also awarded the album four out of five stars, including the British music weekly Record Mirror
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
, the Los Angeles Times
, and the Chicago Tribune
. The Village Voice
' s Robert Christgau
gave the album a B+ rating, suggesting that "getting famous too fast could ruin them."
Other music critics gave the album more mixed reviews. Time Out said that "Gil Norton's toy theatre production makes a drama out of what should have been a crisis." Spin
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.
. After writing "Smells Like Teen Spirit
", both Kurt Cobain
and Krist Novoselic
of Nirvana
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 The Smashing Pumpkins
guitarist James Iha
described Doolittle as less raw than Surfer Rosa but "more listenable" and "Here Comes Your Man" as a "classic pop record." Fellow alternative musician PJ Harvey
was "in awe" of "I Bleed" and "Tame", and described Francis' writing as "amazing".
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 Bossanova
and 1991's Trompe le Monde
(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.
The information regarding accolades attributed to Doolittle is taken from AcclaimedMusic.net.
(*) designates unordered lists.
Additional musicians
Production
Singles
Crackity Jones
"Crackity Jones" is an alternative rock song by the American band Pixies, and is the ninth track on their 1989 album Doolittle. Written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis, "Crackity Jones" describes a crazed roommate and was inspired by Francis' stay in an apartment block with a "weirdo,...
" 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 violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s and two cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s. Several tracks on Doolittle are constructed around simple repeating chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
s.
"Tame" is based on a three chord
Three-chord song
A three-chord song is a song whose music is built around three chords that are played in a certain sequence. Perhaps the most prevalent type of three-chord song is the simple twelve bar blues used in blues and rock and roll....
formula; including Joey Santiago
Joey Santiago
Joey Santiago is a Filipino-American guitarist and composer. Active since 1986, Santiago is best known as the lead guitarist for the American alternative rock band Pixies. After the band's breakup in 1993, Santiago produced musical scores for film and television documentaries, and he formed The...
's playing a "Hendrix chord
Hendrix chord
In music, the dominant 79 chord is sometimes known colloquially as the Hendrix chord or Purple Haze chord, nicknamed for guitarist Jimi Hendrix...
" over the main bass progression. "I Bleed" is melodically simple, and is formed around a single rhythmical repetition. Some songs are influenced by other genres of music
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...
; while "Crackity Jones" has a distinctly Spanish sound
Music of Spain
The Music of Spain has a long history and has played an important part in the development of western music. It has had a particularly strong influence upon Latin American music. The music of Spain is often associated abroad with traditions like flamenco and the classical guitar but Spanish music...
, and incorporates G and A triads over a C pedal, the song's rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, played by Francis, starts with an eighth-note downstroke typical of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
music.
Lyrics
The lyrical themes explored on Doolittle range from the surrealism of "DebaserDebaser
"Debaser" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, and is the first song on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton during Doolittles recording sessions....
", to the environmental catastrophe of "Monkey Gone to Heaven
Monkey Gone to Heaven
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies and is the seventh track on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton. Referencing environmentalism and biblical numerology, the song's lyrics...
". 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 Doolittles 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 Kim Deal
Kim Deal
Kimberley Ann Deal is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of the alternative rock band the Pixies and the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Breeders. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1986 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs...
.
The album's opening track "Debaser" references surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, a theme that runs throughout the album. "Debaser" alludes to Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
's 1929 surrealist film Un chien andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
, 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 New York Times by stating "I got into avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movies and Surrealism as an escape from reality. [...] To me, Surrealism is totally artificial. I recently read an interview with the director David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
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 Bermuda Triangle
Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....
, Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, and mermaids." "Monkey Gone to Heaven" is concerned with man's relationship to the divine, a theme shared with "Mr. Grieves".
Two songs on Doolittle are fashioned after Biblical stories: the story of David and Bathsheba
Bathsheba
According to the Hebrew Bible, Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. She is most known for the Bible story in which King David seduced her....
in "Dead", and Samson and Delilah
Samson
Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
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 Assemblies of God
Assemblies of God
The Assemblies of God , officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 140 autonomous but loosely-associated national groupings of churches which together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination...
. This background was to be an influence in Doolittle, where he referred to the Devil being "six" and God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
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 song's opening phrase, "Cease to resist", is a reference to The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
' 1968 song "Never Learn Not to Love", their rewritten version of Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
's composition "Cease to Exist."
"Wave of Mutilation"'s sea and underwater themes, 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. "Crackity Jones
Crackity Jones
"Crackity Jones" is an alternative rock song by the American band Pixies, and is the ninth track on their 1989 album Doolittle. Written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis, "Crackity Jones" describes a crazed roommate and was inspired by Francis' stay in an apartment block with a "weirdo,...
" covers another offbeat subject; Francis' roommate in his student exchange trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
, 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 David Lovering, is a love song
Love song
A love song is about falling in love and the feelings it brings. Anthologies of love songs often contain a mixture of both of these types of song. A bawdy song is both humorous and saucy, emphasizing the physical pleasure of love rather than the emotional joy...
—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 Ringo
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
thing"; Lovering at first refused to sing, but Norton said that soon he was unable "get him away from the microphone." As well as lead vocals on "La La Love You", Lovering played bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
on "Silver", with Deal playing slide guitar; this arrangement did not occur again.
Packaging and title
Simon Larbalestier
Simon Larbalestier is an English photographer.Larbalestier is noted for his collaborative work with Vaughan Oliver and the design studios 23 Envelope and v23 with whom he has provided photography used on album artwork for bands such as the Pixies, Red House Painters, Heidi Berry and other artists...
, the Pixies' cover photographer, and Vaughan Oliver
Vaughan Oliver
Vaughan Oliver is a British graphic designer based in Epsom, South of London. Oliver is most noted for his work with graphic design studios 23 Envelope and v23...
, the band's cover artist, had access to the lyrics. According to Larbalestier, this "made a fundamental difference." The availability of the lyrics allowed the art and photographs to be more closely tied to the content of the album; the cover references the themes in "Monkey Gone to Heaven", and depicts a stuffed monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
, with a halo
Halo (religious iconography)
A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...
and the numbers five, six and seven above it ("if man is five... then the Devil is six... then God is seven").
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 torso
Torso
Trunk or torso is an anatomical term for the central part of the many animal bodies from which extend the neck and limbs. The trunk includes the thorax and abdomen.-Major organs:...
; 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 "Wave of Mutilation"'s lyrics. 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:
Francis then named the album Doolittle, from the "Mr. Grieves" lyric "Pray for a man in the middle / One that talks like Doolittle." This was in the tradition of previous Pixies albums; both Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa used song lyrics for the album title.
Release
In the months following Surfer Rosa, the Pixies' management fielded calls from a number of labels. Elektra RecordsElektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
scout Peter Lubin first saw the band in October 1988, when they opened for The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Jesus and Mary Chain are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in East Kilbride, Glasgow in 1983. The band revolves around the songwriting partnership of brothers Jim and William Reid...
. 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 Doolittle while 4AD, then a small British independent record label, held worldwide distribution rights. The problem facing 4AD was the fact that they did not have access to distribution outside of the United Kingdom; up to this point the band had to import all of their 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 Doolittles release on April 2, 1989. PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
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 Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
' major label
World music market
The music industry or music business sells compositions, recordings and performances of music. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate within the industry are the musicians who compose and perform the music; the companies and professionals who create and sell recorded music The...
status, retail displays were constructed for the record, and "Monkey Gone to Heaven
Monkey Gone to Heaven
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies and is the seventh track on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton. Referencing environmentalism and biblical numerology, the song's lyrics...
", the first single from the album, was released to radio station
Radio station
Radio broadcasting is a one-way wireless transmission over radio waves intended to reach a wide audience. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast a common radio format, either in broadcast syndication or simulcast or both...
s for inclusion on playlists. Doolittles chart performance in the United States was unremarkable; the album entered the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
at number 171. However, with the help of college radio
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
-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 UK Album Chart. This chart placing was an unexpected success for the band, as their previous two records, Come On Pilgrim
Come on Pilgrim
Come On Pilgrim is the debut mini-LP release by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in September 1987 by 4AD.- Background :...
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 Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart and number 56 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. It was not the last single from the album: in 1997, "Debaser" was released as a single to promote the Death to the Pixies
Death to the Pixies
Death to the Pixies was the first Pixies best-of compilation, released by 4AD in the UK on October 6, 1997 and 4AD/Elektra the following day in the United States to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the band's debut. It covered the years 1987 to 1991. It is currently out of print, having been...
compilation.
Reception
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 U2U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
on their Zoo TV Tour
Zoo TV Tour
The Zoo TV Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of their 1991 album Achtung Baby, the tour visited arenas and stadiums from 1992 through 1993...
, the album was selling 1,500 copies per week. The middle of 1993, two years after the band's last album, Trompe le Monde
Trompe le Monde
Trompe le Monde is the fourth and final album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in 1991 on the English independent record label 4AD in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States...
, saw sales average 1,200 copies per week. Doolittle was certified
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
gold by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
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.
Reaction to Doolittle was positive in general, with the album garnering praise from several major music publications. NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
commented that "the songs on Doolittle have the power to make you literally jump out of your skin with excitement." Q
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
, giving the album four stars out of five, said that Doolittle
Record Mirror
Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper, founded by Isadore Green and featured, news articles, interviews, record charts, record reviews, concert reviews, letters from readers and photographs. The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and serious record collectors...
, The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album a B+ rating, suggesting that "getting famous too fast could ruin them."
Other music critics gave the album more mixed reviews. Time Out said that "Gil Norton's toy theatre production makes a drama out of what should have been a crisis." Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
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 alternative rockAlternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
. After writing "Smells Like Teen Spirit
Smells Like Teen Spirit
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a song by the American grunge band Nirvana. It is the opening track and lead single from the band's second album, Nevermind , released on DGC Records...
", both Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
and Krist Novoselic
Krist Novoselic
Krist Anthony Novoselic II is a Croatian-American rock musician, best known for being the bassist and co-founder of the grunge band Nirvana. After Nirvana ended, Novoselic formed Sweet 75 and then Eyes Adrift, releasing one album with each band...
of Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
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 The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
guitarist James Iha
James Iha
James Yoshinobu Iha b. March 26, 1968 in Chicago, Illinois) is a Japanese American rock musician. He is best known as having been a guitarist and co-founder of the alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins and for his eclectic musical projects of recent years, most notably being a permanent...
described Doolittle as less raw than Surfer Rosa but "more listenable" and "Here Comes Your Man" as a "classic pop record." Fellow alternative musician PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
was "in awe" of "I Bleed" and "Tame", and described Francis' writing as "amazing".
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 Bossanova
Bossanova
Bossanova is the third album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in August 1990 on the English independent record label 4AD in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States. All of Bossanovas original material was written by the band's frontman Black Francis; it...
and 1991's Trompe le Monde
Trompe le Monde
Trompe le Monde is the fourth and final album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in 1991 on the English independent record label 4AD in the United Kingdom and by Elektra Records in the United States...
(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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Press Hot Press Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007... |
Ireland | Top 100 Albums | 2006 | #34 |
| Juice | Australia | The 50 Best Albums of All Time | 1997 | #2 |
| NME NME The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles... |
UK | 100 Best Albums | 2003 | #2 |
| Panorama | Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
The 30 Best Albums of the Year 1970–98 | 1999 | #1 |
| Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock... |
US | Top 100 Albums of the 1980s | 2002 | #4 |
| Q Q (magazine) Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology... |
UK | Ultimate Music Collection | 2005 | * |
| Rolling Stone Rolling Stone Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J... |
US | The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:... |
2005 | #226 |
| Spin Spin (magazine) Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard... |
US | 100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005 | 2005 | #36 |
(*) designates unordered lists.
Track listing
All tracks were written by Black Francis, except where noted.- "DebaserDebaser"Debaser" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, and is the first song on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton during Doolittles recording sessions....
" – 2:52 - "Tame" – 1:55
- "Wave of Mutilation" – 2:04
- "I Bleed" – 2:34
- "Here Comes Your ManHere Comes Your Man"Here Comes Your Man" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis. Produced by Gil Norton, it was released as the second single from the group's second album Doolittle in June 1989....
" – 3:21 - "Dead" – 2:21
- "Monkey Gone to HeavenMonkey Gone to Heaven"Monkey Gone to Heaven" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies and is the seventh track on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton. Referencing environmentalism and biblical numerology, the song's lyrics...
" – 2:56 - "Mr. Grieves" – 2:05
- "Crackity JonesCrackity Jones"Crackity Jones" is an alternative rock song by the American band Pixies, and is the ninth track on their 1989 album Doolittle. Written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis, "Crackity Jones" describes a crazed roommate and was inspired by Francis' stay in an apartment block with a "weirdo,...
" – 1:24 - "La La Love You" – 2:43
- "No. 13 Baby" – 3:51
- "There Goes My Gun" – 1:49
- "Hey" – 3:31
- "Silver" (Francis, Kim DealKim DealKimberley Ann Deal is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of the alternative rock band the Pixies and the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Breeders. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1986 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs...
) – 2:25 - "Gouge Away" – 2:45
Personnel
Pixies- Black FrancisFrank BlackBlack Francis is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the influential alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. Following the band's breakup in 1993, he embarked on a solo career under the name Frank Black...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Kim DealKim DealKimberley Ann Deal is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the bassist of the alternative rock band the Pixies and the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for The Breeders. Deal first joined the Pixies in January 1986 as the band's bassist, adopting the stage name Mrs...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, vocals, slide guitarSlide guitarSlide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
on "Silver" - Joey SantiagoJoey SantiagoJoey Santiago is a Filipino-American guitarist and composer. Active since 1986, Santiago is best known as the lead guitarist for the American alternative rock band Pixies. After the band's breakup in 1993, Santiago produced musical scores for film and television documentaries, and he formed The...
– lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
, backing vocalsBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists... - David Lovering – drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, lead vocal on "La La Love You", bass guitar on "Silver"
Additional musicians
- Arthur Fiacco – celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
on "Monkey Gone to Heaven" - Karen Karlsrud – violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
on "Monkey Gone to Heaven" - Corine Metter – violin on "Monkey Gone to Heaven"
- Ann Rorich – cello on "Monkey Gone to Heaven"
Production
- Steve Haigler – mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
engineer - Matt Lane – assistant engineerAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
- Simon Larbalestier – cover image, album booklet imagery
- Gil NortonGil NortonGil Norton is a British record producer known for his work with such bands as Pixies, Echo & the Bunnymen, Foo Fighters, Tribe, Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Feeder, The Distillers, Maxïmo Park, Counting Crows, Terrorvision, The Triffids, Del Amitri, James, The Feelers, The Beekeepers,...
– productionRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, engineering - Vaughan OliverVaughan OliverVaughan Oliver is a British graphic designer based in Epsom, South of London. Oliver is most noted for his work with graphic design studios 23 Envelope and v23...
– album booklet imagery - Dave Snider – assistant engineer
- Published by Rice 'n' Beans Music BMI
Chart performance
Album| Chart (1989) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
98 |
| UK Album Chart | 8 |
| French Album Chart | 66 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart (1989) | Peak position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | "Here Comes Your Man Here Comes Your Man "Here Comes Your Man" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, written and sung by the band's frontman Black Francis. Produced by Gil Norton, it was released as the second single from the group's second album Doolittle in June 1989.... " |
US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs... |
3 |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
54 | ||
| 1989 | "Monkey Gone to Heaven Monkey Gone to Heaven "Monkey Gone to Heaven" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies and is the seventh track on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton. Referencing environmentalism and biblical numerology, the song's lyrics... " |
US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 5 |
| UK Singles Chart | 60 | ||
| 1997 | "Debaser Debaser "Debaser" is a song by the American alternative rock band Pixies, and is the first song on their 1989 album Doolittle. The song was written and sung by frontman Black Francis and was produced by Gil Norton during Doolittles recording sessions.... " |
UK Singles Chart | 23 |
External links
- Doolittle at Last.fmLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
- Doolittle at GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
Music