My Top 100 Albums: #67 - Pixies, ‘Doolittle’

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67.

Pixies, ‘Doolittle’

4AD, 1989

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Before Nevermind dragged alternative rock out of the shadow of ‘80s glam rock and turned it into the cultural monolith that dominated the radio in the ‘90s, there were a series of albums that failed to make much of a splash on the US music scene on release but later went on to be extremely popular and influential. Doolittle was perhaps the best of these albums. Kurt Cobain was a huge Pixies fan and drew heavily from their raw, chaotic style, and for artists such as PJ Harvey and The Smashing Pumpkins, it was Black Francis and co.’s sophomore record in particular which formed a source of inspiration. From the bass intro of opener Debaser, we get a feel for what made Pixies so influential. Melding New Wave with art rock with straight-up punk-oriented noise rock, Doolittle established a sound that still to this day feels cutting-edge and hair-raising. The lead vocals are often maniacal and ear-piercing, the electric guitar riffs discordant and distorted, the lyrics disjointed and inscrutable. It is left to a combination of pinpoint mixing, precise drum licks and Kim Deal’s melodic and catchy bass riffs to hold all the chaos together like a roll of masking tape around a shattered vase. The track Hey exhibits this perfectly, with Deal’s earworm of a bass line and hypnotic backing vocals providing stability whilst Francis howls, screeches and grunts his way through impenetrable lines about whores, devils and babies breaking, the result being somehow one of the catchiest alt-rock songs ever made. The album’s other highlights are arguably more conventional pop rock records, in the form of Here Comes Your Man and Monkey Gone to Heaven, and are likely the reason that critics have called Doolittle the most consumer-friendly of Pixies’ releases, but they are no less compelling for it. The quiet-verse-loud-chorus aesthetic on the likes of Tame have naturally been cited as inspirations for Nirvana’s sound, and the slightly more subdued Gouge Away is one of my personal favourites in the tracklist. The band’s commitment to snappy two- or three-minute track lengths in service to overall listenability provides momentum and contributes to the record feeling fresh and inventive, even over the course of several decades and multiple listens. Doolittle is rightly regarded as one of the greatest albums to precede the alternative rock explosion of the early 1990s, and its importance in helping to forge and gestate that recognisable ‘90s sound cannot be overstated.

Hidden Highlight: Gouge Away

1. Debaser

2. Tame

3. Wave of Mutilation

4. I Bleed

5. Here Comes Your Man

6. Dead

7. Monkey Gone to Heaven

8. Mr. Grieves

9. Crackity Jones

10. La La Love You

11. No. 13 Baby

12. There Goes My Gun

13. Hey

14. Silver

15. Gouge Away

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See the full list so far here:

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