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Doolittle (album)

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Doolittle is the second studio album from the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in April 1989 on 4AD. The album's offbeat and dark subject material, with references to surrealism, Biblical violence, torture and death, contrasts with its clean production, which owed much to newly-hired producer Gil Norton. Elektra Records acted as American distributor for the album, the Pixies' first international and major label release.

The Pixies released two singles from Doolittle, "Here Comes Your Man" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven"; both releases were chart successes on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the album itself reached #8 in the United Kingdom, a unheralded chart position for the band. Songs such as "Debaser", "Wave of Mutilation" and "Hey" were highly critically regarded, and Doolittle, along with Surfer Rosa, is seen as the band's best work by critics and fans alike.

Doolittle continues to sell well today, eighteen years after its release, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1995. Doolittle has been cited as inspirational by many alternative artists and acclaimed by music critics — numerous music publications have ranked it as one of the most influential albums ever. A 2003 poll of NME writers ranked Doolittle as the second greatest album of all time.

Background

After 1988's Surfer Rosa, a highly regarded but commercially unsuccessful release,[1] the band embarked on a European tour, with fellow Bostonians Throwing Muses, and a subsequent US tour. During these tours, Black Francis, the group's frontman and primary songwriter, began to write new material for a future album, with songs such as "Dead", "Hey", "Tame" and "There Goes My Gun" appearing throughout the year.[2] The newly-composed songs were recorded in several Peel sessions in 1988, and a live version of "Hey" appeared on a free EP from Sounds.[3]

During the summer of the same year, the Pixies began demo sessions while on breaks from touring. The band headed to the Boston recording studio Eden Sound, a small room in the basement of a hair salon, to put their new material to tape. They recorded at the studio for a week, in similar circumstances to the Purple Tape demos made a year beforehand. Francis gave the demo tape, and upcoming album, a provisional name: Whore — he claimed his natural father suggested the name. Francis later said he meant "it to be in the more traditional sense of the word, the operatic, biblical sense, [...] as in the great whore of Babylon."[4]

After recording their demo tape, the band's manager, Ken Goes, gave the names of two producers for consideration by the band, Liverpudlian Gil Norton and American Ed Stasium. The band had previously worked with Norton, recording a single version of "Gigantic" with him in May 1988. Francis had no preference, and Ivo Watts-Russell, head of the band's label 4AD, was keen on Norton recording the Pixies' next album. He was then hired as producer, and Stasium was never approached for the position.[5]

Norton arrived in Boston on 31 October1988, travelling to Francis' apartment in order to review the album's demos. The two talked about arrangements, spending two days intensively going through the album's songs. Norton learnt how Francis reacted to changing arrangements, later commenting that "he doesn't like to do anything twice". Norton spent two weeks on preproduction, in order to familiarise himself with the Pixies' music.[6]

Recording and production

Recording began on 31 October 1988 at Downtown Recorders in Template:City-state, a professional 24-track studio. The band were given a budget of US$40,000 by 4AD (excluding the producer's fee); it was modest for a 1980's major label album, but was quadruple that of the Pixies' previous album, Surfer Rosa. Along with Norton, there were two assistant recording engineers and two second assistants in the studio. Recording of the album concluded after three weeks, on 23 November.[7]

Production and mixing of the album commenced on November 28, with the band travelling to Carriage House Studios, a residential studio in Template:City-state, to oversee production and record more tracks.[8] Norton brought in Steve Haigler, whom he knew through Fort Apache Studios, as a mixing engineer for Doolittle. During production, Haigler and Norton added layers of guitars and vocals to songs, including overdubbed guitars in "Debaser", and "Wave of Mutilation", where they overlayed Francis' vocals. Throughout recording, Norton advised Francis to alter several songs; for example, "There Goes My Gun" had originally been a much faster Hüsker Dü-style song, but Francis, on Norton's advice, slowed the song's tempo down.[9]

However, Norton's suggestions were not always welcome; he advised Francis to add verses to several songs (such as "Here Comes Your Man") and to increase the length of many of the album's songs. Francis grew increasingly frustrated with this, and took Norton to a record store, where he handed Norton a copy of Buddy Holly's Greatest Hits (most of the songs on the album were under two minutes). He then told Norton, "If it's good enough for Buddy Holly..".[10] Francis later told Rolling Stone that "this record is him trying to make us, shall I say, commercial, and us trying to remain somewhat grungy".[11] Production continued until 12 December 1988, with Norton and Haigler adding extra effects such as gated reverb. The tapes were then sent off for final mastering later that month.[12]

Release

In the months after Surfer Rosa, the Pixies' management were fielding calls from a range of labels. Elektra Records scout Peter Lubin first saw the band in October 1988 opening for The Jesus and Mary Chain, and immediately began convincing the band to sign to the label. The band signed to Elektra Records during a UK spring tour in 1988. Elektra then released a live promotional album containing two songs from the upcoming album, "Debaser" and "Gouge Away", along with a range of the band's earlier material.[3]

4AD, a small British independent record label, owned the worldwide rights to the Pixies, but had no distribution outside of the United Kingdom; the band had to import its previous records. The Pixies' management were looking for international distribution; negotiations to secure the distribution rights for their next album began in the fall of 1988, and were finally completed just over two weeks before Doolittle was released, on 2 April 1989. PolyGram had already secured Canadian distribution rights by that time.[13]

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 stations for rotation.[14] Doolittle's chart performance in the United States was unremarkable; the album entered the Billboard 200 at #171. However, it eventually rose to #98,[15] with the help of college radio-play of "Monkey Gone to Heaven", and spent two weeks in the Top 100. In Britain, the record reached #8 on the UK Album Chart, an unexpected success for the band, as their previous two records, Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, had failed to make a similar impact on the British charts.[16]

After "Monkey Gone to Heaven", 4AD released "Here Comes Your Man", the second and last single to be taken directly from the album, in June 1989. The single reached #3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, but did not enter the British Top 40; its highest position was #56. 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.

Music

Template:Sample box start Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. Songs such as "Tame" and "Crackity Jones" are fast and aggressive, with the band's trademark loud-quiet dynamic featuring throughout.[17] Other songs, such as "Silver", "I Bleed" and "Here Comes Your Man" expose a quieter, slower and more melodical side to the band.[18] With Doolittle, the band began to incorporate other instruments into their sound; "Monkey Gone to Heaven" features two violins and two cellos.

Many of the songs on the album are based on simple chord progressions; "Tame" is a three-chord song, with Joey Santiago playing a "Hendrix chord" over the main progression.[19] "I Bleed" is also melodically simple, with the bass guitar repeating the same phrase throughout the song. Other songs are influenced by other genres of music; "Crackity Jones" has a distinctly Spanish sound, with G# and A triads over a C# pedal, and the song's rhythm guitar, played by Francis, starts the song with an eighth-note downstroke (typical of punk rock music).[20]

Content

A range of themes were present in Doolittle, from surrealism in "Debaser", environmental catastrophe in "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and "Mr. Grieves", women and whores in "Tame" and "Hey", to Biblical stories in "Dead" and "Gouge Away". Black Francis, as Doolittle's primary songwriter, heavily influenced the subject matter of the album, but he often claims that Doolittle's lyrics are just "words that fit together nicely" and "the point [of the album] is to experience it, to enjoy it, to be entertained by it".[21] Francis wrote every song on the album, except for "Silver", which was written by Francis and bassist Kim Deal.[22]

"Debaser", the album's opening track, references surrealism, a theme that runs throughout the album. The song mainly references the 1929 surrealist Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí film Un chien andalou, with the lyric "slicing up eyeballs" alluding to the first scene of the film, which depicts an eyeball being sliced open. Surrealism, a mainly artistic movement that states that the liberation of the self and of society can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind", heavily influenced Francis in his college years and his career with the Pixies. He later explained to the New York Times in 1989 about his interest in the subject and how it influenced his songwriting method:[23]

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.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven" deals with the subject of man's destruction of the ocean and "confusion of man's place in the universe". Francis commented on one of the song's subjects, the mythical qualities of the ocean:[24]

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" also deals with man's relationship with 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".[25] Francis' fascination with Biblical themes can be traced back to his teenage years; he and his parents joined an evangelical church that was linked to the Assemblies of God when he was 12. This spiritual experience was to be an influence in Doolittle, where he referred to the Devil being "six" and God being "seven" in "Monkey Gone to Heaven", along with his various takes on Bible stories.[26]

Other songs explored eccentric subjects, such as in "Wave of Mutilation", a song about, in Francis' words, "Japanese businessmen doing murder-suicides with their families because they'd failed in business, and they're driving off a pier into the ocean."[27] "Wave of Mutiliation"'s sea and underwater theme, which also featured in "Mr. Grieves" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven", is one where it becomes an arena for man's death and destruction.[28] "Crackity Jones" covers another offbeat subject; Francis' roommate in his student exchange trip to Template:City-state, who he described as a "weird psycho gay roommate".[26][29]

The album references more conventional subjects. "La La Love You", sung by the band's drummer Dave Lovering, is a love song about a unknown woman. Francis gave Lovering a song to sing, "like a Ringo thing"; Lovering at first refused to sing, but Norton soon said that he was unable "get him away from the microphone".[30]

Imagery

"As Loud As Hell" by Simon Larbealestier, from the Doolittle cover booklet. The image references lyrics in "I Bleed".

Doolittle was the first album where Simon Larbalestier, the Pixies' cover artist, had access to the lyrics, which, according to him, "made a fundamental difference".[31] The availability of the lyrics allowed the art 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.

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 with some hair, laid across a woman's torso.[32] "I Bleed" is referenced with the image "As Loud As Hell"; the image shows "a ringing bell", with a set of teeth, which references the line "it shakes my teeth". Images such as "Walking with the Crustaceans" are visual representations of lyrics in "Wave of Mutilation". Larbalestier later commented that he was interested in "early Surrealist stuff" at this time.[31]

Album title

During the recording sessions, Whore was discarded as a potential album title, after album artist Oliver changed the cover artwork idea to a monkey and halo cover. Francis later explained his rationale for the move:[33]

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",[34] in the tradition of previous Pixies albums — both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa used song lyrics for the album title.

Critical recognition

Initial reception

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".[35] Q, giving the album four stars out of five, said that Doolittle's "carefully structured noise and straight foward rhythmic insistence makes perfect sense".[36] Tim Rolston, of The Daily Telegraph, commented that Doolittle was "a scintillating rock'n'roll album", and the Pixies' "finest half-hour so far".[37] 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.[35] The Village Voice's Robert Christgau gave the album a B+ rating, forecasting that "getting famous too fast could ruin them".[38]

However, Doolittle recieved mixed reviews from several music critics.[36] Time Out commented 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, with critic Joe Levy commenting that "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 1988, gave the album three and a half stars.[36]

Retrospect

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 five stars out of five, remarking that it laid the "groundwork for Nineties rock".[39] Doolittle has received a number of international accolades, and is consistently noted as one of the best albums (of any genre) of the 1980s.[40]

Legacy

The loud/quiet dynamic present on Doolittle, most notably in "Tame", has been very influential on alternative rock and grunge. 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."[41] Former The Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha described Doolittle as less raw than Surfer Rosa, but "more listenable"; he described "Here Comes Your Man" as a "classic pop record". Fellow alternative musician PJ Harvey was "in awe" of "I Bleed" and "Tame", describing Francis' writing as "amazing".[42]

Band relationships

During the recording of Doolittle, tensions between Francis and Deal became visible to band members and the production team. Bickering between the two and standoffs marred the recording sessions, leading to increased stress between the band members.[43] John Murphy, Deal's husband at the time, later commented that during Doolittle, the process "went from just all fun to work".[44] Exhaustion from releasing three records in two years also played a part. This culminated at the end of the U.S. post-Doolittle "Fuck or Fight" tour, where they were too tired to attend the end-of-tour party; the band soon announced a hiatus.[45]

After they reconvened in 1990, Francis began to limit Deal's contributions to the band; the original material on their two subsequent albums, 1990's Bossanova and 1991's Trompe le Monde (both produced by Norton and mixed by Haigler), was written and sung exclusively by Francis. This breakdown in the relationship between Deal and Francis, first visible in Doolittle's recording, ultimately led to the band's breakup in late 1992 and early 1993.

Sales

After its release, Doolittle sold steadily in America, reaching sales of 100,000 after six months. By early 1992, while the band were supporting U2 on their Zoo TV tour, the album was selling 1500 a week. The middle of 1993, two years after the band's last album, Trompe le Monde, saw sales, on average, of 1200 per week. Doolittle was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1995.[46] Ten years after the breakup, Doolittle was still selling between 500 and 1000 a week; the reunion tour saw sales creep back up to 1200 a week. At the end of 2005, best estimates put total sales in America at between 800,000 and one million.[47]

Charts

Chart (1989) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard 200 98
UK Album Chart 8
French Album Chart 66

Singles

Single Chart (1989) Peak
position
Here Comes Your Man" U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 3
"Here Comes Your Man" UK Singles Chart 54
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks 5
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" UK Singles Chart 60

Track listing

  1. "Debaser" – 2:52
  2. "Tame" – 1:55
  3. "Wave of Mutilation" – 2:04
  4. "I Bleed" – 2:34
  5. "Here Comes Your Man" – 3:21
  6. "Dead" – 2:21
  7. "Monkey Gone to Heaven" – 2:56
  8. "Mr. Grieves" – 2:05
  9. "Crackity Jones" – 1:24
  10. "La La Love You" – 2:43
  11. "No. 13 Baby" – 3:51
  12. "There Goes My Gun" – 1:49
  13. "Hey" – 3:31
  14. "Silver" – 2:25
  15. "Gouge Away" – 2:45

Credits

All information is taken from the CD release of Doolittle:

Accolades

The information regarding accolades attributed to Doolittle is taken from AcclaimedMusic.net.[40]

Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
Hot Press Ireland Top 100 Albums[48] 2006 #34
Juice Australia The 50 Best Albums of All Time[49] 1997 #2
NME U.K. 100 Best Albums[50] 2003 #2
Panorama Norway The 30 Best Albums of the Year 1970-98 1999 #1
Q U.K. Ultimate Music Collection[51] 2005 *
Rolling Stone U.S. The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2003 #226
Spin U.S. 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005[52] 2005 #36

(*) designates lists which are unordered.

Notes and references

  1. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 87
  2. ^ Frank, Josh; Ganz, Caryn. "Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies." (2006). ISBN 0-312-34007-9. p. 104
  3. ^ a b "4AD - Pixies profile". Retrieved 2007-01-01.
  4. ^ Sisario, Ben. Doolittle 33⅓. Continuum, 2006. ISBN 0-8264-1774-4 p. 21
  5. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 45
  6. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 112
  7. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 47
  8. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 116
  9. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 45
  10. ^ Sisario, p. 46
  11. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 52
  12. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 55-6
  13. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 22
  14. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 61
  15. ^ "Artist Chart History - Pixies". Billboard. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  16. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 63
  17. ^ Edwards, Mark (2004-08-08). "Pop:Loud quiet loud". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  18. ^ "albumvote reviews - Doolittle by Pixies". Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  19. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 80-82
  20. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 102
  21. ^ Sisario, 2006. blurb
  22. ^ Doolittle CD cover booklet.
  23. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 26
  24. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 96
  25. ^ Spitz, Marc. "Life to the Pixies". Spin. September 2004.
  26. ^ a b "A Pixies History". Alec Eiffel. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
  27. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 83
  28. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 85
  29. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 12
  30. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 113
  31. ^ a b Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 117
  32. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. insert.
  33. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 54
  34. ^ Francis, Black. Lyrics. "Mr. Grieves." Doolittle. LP. 4AD 1988.
  35. ^ a b Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 120
  36. ^ a b c Sisario, 2006. p. 62-3
  37. ^ Bie, Jean-Michel; Gourraud, Christophe. "Pixies Press Quotes". Alec Eiffel. Retrieved 2007-01-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  38. ^ "Robert Christgau: CG: Pixies". Retrieved 2007-01-30.
  39. ^ Mark Kemp (2002-11-28). "Doolittle: Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2007-01-28. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  40. ^ a b "Doolittle at AcclaimedMusic.net". Retrieved 2007-01-28.
  41. ^ Azerrad, Michael. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Doubleday, 1993. ISBN 0-385-47199-8, p. 176
  42. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 120
  43. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 53
  44. ^ Frank, Ganz, 2006. p. 115
  45. ^ Stephen Thomas Erlewine. "Pixies > Biography". Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  46. ^ RIAA. "RIAA Certification". Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  47. ^ Sisario, 2006. p. 69
  48. ^ "Electric Ladyland (100/100 Greatest Albums Ever)". Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  49. ^ "Juice All Time 50 Albums". Rocklist.net. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  50. ^ "NME's 100 Best Albums". Rocklist.net. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  51. ^ "Q Ultimate Music Collection". Rocklist.net. Retrieved 2007-03-16.
  52. ^ "SPIN.com: 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005". 2005-06-20. Retrieved 2007-03-16.

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Doolittle.


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