Maps of Music

Doolittle (1989)

Where the lyrics of Doolittle take you, and where it was really made.

The album started as Whore, a title dropped when the cover turned to a monkey with a halo.

Key places

Where the sessions began (1988)

Recording site Downtown Recorders — Recording sessions for Doolittle began here on 31 October 1988. The studio was a 24-track facility at the time. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Mixing in Stamford (1988)

Recording site The Carriage House — Mixing sessions for the album began here on 28 November 1988, two weeks after principal recording ended. The studio is a residential studio in Stamford, Connecticut. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Doolittle: second studio album by the American alternative rock band Pixies
• Released 17 April 1989 on 4AD in the UK; Elektra handled US distribution
• Became the band's breakthrough album
• Black Francis, the main songwriter and lead vocalist, wrote the lyrics
• Lyrics allude to surrealist imagery, biblical violence, torture and death
• Praised for its quiet/loud dynamic, built on Kim Deal's bass and David Lovering's drums

Background

• Surfer Rosa (1988) was better received in the UK than in the US
• Before the album, the band toured Europe with Throwing Muses
• First demos recorded in one week in 1988 at Eden Sound, Boston, during a break from touring
• Francis gave the album the provisional title Whore
• Manager Ken Goes suggested producers Gil Norton and Ed Stasium
• Ivo Watts-Russell, head of 4AD, chose Norton to produce

Recording

• Sessions began 31 October 1988 at Downtown Recorders in Boston, a 24-track studio
• Budget of $40,000 excluding producer fees, four times the amount spent on Surfer Rosa
• Principal recording completed 23 November 1988
• Mixing began 28 November at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut
• Mixing engineer Steve Haigler
• Tension between Francis and Kim Deal marked the sessions
• Mixing completed 12 December 1988

Cover

• Photography by Simon Larbalestier; design by Vaughan Oliver
• Cover shows a monkey with a halo, with the numbers 5, 6 and 7, tied to the lyrics of Monkey Gone to Heaven

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1986.
• Original lineup: Black Francis (vocals, rhythm guitar), Joey Santiago (lead guitar), Kim Deal (bass, vocals), David Lovering (drums).
• Named after a word Santiago picked randomly from a dictionary.

Members

• Francis is the primary songwriter; his surreal lyrics cover extraterrestrials, incest and biblical violence.
• Deal left in 2012; Kim Shattuck and then Paz Lenchantin followed; Lenchantin became a full member in 2016.
• In 2024 Lenchantin was replaced by Emma Richardson, formerly of Band of Skulls.

Career

• Debut mini-LP Come On Pilgrim (1987), followed by Surfer Rosa (1988), Doolittle (1989), Bossanova (1990) and Trompe le Monde (1991).
• Disbanded in 1993 after modest US success, but gained more popularity in the UK and Europe.
• Reunited in 2004 with sold-out world tours; released The Night the Zombies Came in 2024.
• Known for extreme loud-quiet-loud dynamics blending surf rock and punk rock; influenced Nirvana, Radiohead, Weezer and others.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• NME's Edwin Pouncey wrote that the album's songs have the power to make listeners jump out of their skin with excitement
• Q's Peter Kane wrote that its carefully structured noise and rhythmic insistence make perfect sense
• Robert Christgau in The Village Voice gave it a B+
• Sounds and Melody Maker named Doolittle their album of the year
• Rolling Stone and The Village Voice placed it tenth on their year-end lists
• NME ranked it fourth on its year-end list
• Some reviews were mixed; Time Out said Gil Norton's production turned a crisis into drama

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone's 2002 review gave it five stars and said it laid the groundwork for Nineties rock
• PopMatters included it in its list of 12 essential 1980s alternative rock albums
• Pitchfork ranked it the fourth-best album of the 1980s in a 2017 survey
• A 2003 poll of NME writers ranked it the second-greatest album of all time
• Rolling Stone placed it at number 141 on its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums

Records

• Reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart in its release week
• Entered the US Billboard 200 at number 171 and later peaked at number 98, spending two weeks in the Top 100
• Sold steadily in the US and passed 100,000 copies after six months
• Certified gold by the RIAA in 1995 and platinum in 2018
• Single Here Comes Your Man reached number three on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 54 in the UK Singles Chart
• Best estimates put total US sales at between 800,000 and 1,000,000 by the end of 2005

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Francis dropped the working title Whore around the time the cover art was decided, worried that the title would bring rumours about the band.
• Shortly after release, Francis was pulled over by US Border Patrol near the Mexican border; an officer recognized him from MTV.
• Silver, co-written with Kim Deal, is often considered the weakest song on the album.
• Joey Santiago covered his Marshall amplifiers with blankets in protest at Norton adding too much reverb to his guitar parts.
• The title comes from a lyric in Mr. Grieves.
• David Lovering sang La La Love You, his only vocal performance on a Pixies track; he said he was so nervous he drank a lot of vodka.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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