Pixies – Doolittle (1989, 4AD)
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To a certain extent, Doolittle – the Pixies’ most accessible (and best-selling) album – is all about tension. The tension of band trying to continue sounding raw and dirty while being pushed to adopt a more commercial tone. The tension of a band in transition from independent to major label. The tension between two vocalists and visual foci who had very different ideas about music. The tension inherent in the band’s unique-at-the-time loud-quiet-loud song arrangements. The tension between melody and abrasion, tunefulness and distortion, punk rock and surf rock, male and female…you get it.

The Pixies – singer/guitarist Black Francis (Charles Thompson, aka Frank Black), bassist/singer Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Lovering – were the uber-college rock band of the ‘80s. Francis and Santiago met at college (UMass). They formed a band a couple of years later (circa 1986) in the quintessential college town of Boston, which, as you’d expect, is where they played most of their early gigs. Even their sound and style – especially on Doolittle – were tailor-made for the nascent “college rock” moniker and scene: not punk enough to be truly underground, and not commercial enough for mainstream radio.

Coming after the raw sonic blast of the Steve Albini-produced Surfer Rosa (my own personal favorite Pixies recording, natch, with its heavy but wide-ranging sound), Doolittle sounds positively clean cut. Chalk it up to either British producer Gil Norton (hired at the “suggestion” of the Pixies’ then-label chief, Ivo Watts-Russell), a quadrupled recording budget of $40,000, or both, but the “listenability” of Doolittle compared to the band’s earlier output is in no small part due to such material as “Here Comes Your Man,” “Monkey Gone to Heaven” (to date the only Pixies song to feature strings…though it’s Francis’ screamed “Then GOD is SEVEN/HEAVEN” line that gets me very time) and “La La Love You.” Even less overtly poppy numbers like “Gouge Away,” “Silver” and “Hey” suggest a much-toned down Pixies when compared to, say, “Something Against You” from their previous album. (more…)