Track Listing

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1243 in Music
• Released on: 1993-12-31
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you want to plot a classic rise and fall pattern in the career of a band, look no further than the Pixies. This middle album, third of five, is the pinnacle of their noise equation: taut, terrifying and tightly edited, these 15 tracks (best known: "Monkey Gone To Heaven"; best quality, the insane "Debaser"; or the predatory "Hey") have the confidence that was missing from Come On Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, but without the bloated pomp of Bossanova or Trompe Le Monde. Black Francis, as Charles Thompson IV was known then, surfs fast with his and Joey Santiago's guitars, tempered by the groundswell of Kim Deal's fine bass and counter vocals. It is like the last stand of US indie-dom: intelligent music encased in its precious, intricate and trademark Vaughn Oliver sleeve. Charlie Porter

CD Description
From the opening bars of DOOLITTLE, the Pixies' brilliant duality comes into focus. Chiming guitar streaks waft over anAOR-ready riff, while vocals bark out references to a deliberately obscure culture. "Debaser," for instance, finds singer/songwriter Black Francis alluding to "Chien Andalou," Spanish director Luis Bunuel's surrealist film renowned for a scene where an eyeball is sliced. The Pixies' calling card istheir calculated sonic mayhem. Francis and bass player Kim Deal weave vocal harmonies of inimitable dissonance as guitarist Joey Santiago's leads ring like air-raid sirens. DOOLITTLE perfectly captures The Pixies' refusal to be categorizedinto one form of musical identity. The album's most gorgeous melody is wrapped around the words "cease to exist, givingmy goodbye," and crowned with the title "Wave Of Mutilation." The rest of the album follows suit, and even the love songs bear Francis' warped humor, boasting titles like "Tame" and "Dead." DOOLITTLE is quintessential Pixies. Unflinching in their abrasion, the group created some of the best, most intriguing rock music of the early 1990s.

Customer Reviews

Most influential rock album of the eighties?
Ten years on and its hard too believe this album is as fresh and as powerful as it was the first time I heard it. From Black Francis hysterical vocals on Debaser through to the bass driven Gouge away, the album simply never falters.Here comes your man and Monkey gone to heaven wander towards the mainstream without losing the albums plot, but the overall feel of the album is still one of awesome originality. It says a lot that some advertising exec somewhere looking for a suitably manic track to push an "out of the ordinary" Vodka promo on the telly, didn't look to the modern crop of Rock mediocrities, but instead picked "Tame", a track penned some ten years ago by a band who for the brief period in the eighties and nineties set some pretty incredible, and still, unparalleled standards. Death to the Pixies indeed.

One of the greatest albums of all time
It beats me why Doolittle, an album of such ferocious intensity and top-quality songwriting is always forgotten in those ubiquitous "Top 100 Album" lists run by any number of websites. Quite frankly it is the greatest alt-rock album ever created, crammed full of powerful rock songs and gentler melodies. Black Francis's voice - primal and terrifying on songs such as "Tame" and gentle and welcoming on "Wave Of Mutilation" - duels with Joey Santiago's angular guitar lines to great effect, creating a totally unique sound. Pixies are one of those bands who have no discernable influences. They sound like nothing else you will have heard, but for this review's sake I'll try to make some comparisons. The quiet/loud dynamic they pioneered really makes itself known here, turning "Gouge Away" from a quiet, sinister whisper into a massively loud roar of anger and making "Tame" one of the most unsettling songs yet recorded.

Any die-hard Pixies fan will already have this in their collection, but for anyone looking to get into this amazing band, "Doolittle" is a great place to start. It has the combination of poppy melody ("La La Love You", "Here Comes Your Man"), indie guitar anthems ("Debaser", "Wave Of Mutilation") and freaky scream-alongs ("Tame", "Crackity Jones") that will ease you gently into the world of the Pixies without scaring you off. You might not like some songs at first but give it time and within a couple of months you'll be utterly addicted.

Forget the hyperbole, just listen
There are many that would claim that this the best album/record/CD EVER!!!! I'm not so sure, but Doolittle does bring me back, time after time, to a gloriously repeatable pinnacle of rock music. I've owned this album since it was released in 1989 and, quite simply, it is a timeless masterpiece. Whilst the Pixies may not have the cachet of some other 'bigger' or more mainstream artists, this seminal piece of work from them is overlooked at your own peril. If you've heard of them, you don't need to read this; if you haven't or are not sure then just buy it. The best rock album ever? Possibly. The best Pixies album, definitely - and that's very good indeed!