Review
The Pixies' groundbreaking second album, "Doolittle," was a seismic shift in their sound when it dropped in April 1989. Working with producer Gil Norton, they propelled their music in a new, more radio-friendly direction without shedding the eccentric edge that made them so compelling. The resulting album boasts a thrilling dynamic, thanks to the interplay between quiet tension and explosive release in tracks like "Debaser" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven."
Joey Santiago's distorted guitars and Kim Deal's pulsing basslines buttress lead vocalist Black Francis's literary explorations of darkness, surrealism, and biblical allegory. On "Debaser," for instance, he channels the surrealist masterminds Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's notoriously radical film collaboration, "Un Chien Andalou." The vivid nightmares and surreal tangles here reflect Black Francis's uncommon vision as a lyricist.
By the time "Doolittle" hit the markets, it was an instant coronation – particularly in Britain, where the album grabbed a fistful of Album of the Year nods from the top music weeklies. As commercial success piled up – Gold status in the US, a robust presence on the American Alternative charts – Pixies unearthed the bedrock for the sound shifts that followed. It laid tracks in the earth as if "Doolittle" had been meant all this while to serve as a blueprint for the thriving alternative universe that followed in the 90s – full of grunge, edge, depth. - Riley
