Doolittle is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in April 1989 on 4AD. The album’s offbeat and dark subject material, featuring references to surrealism, Biblical violence, torture and death, contrasts with the clean production sound achieved by the newly hired producer Gil Norton. It has continued to sell consistently well in the years since its release, certified gold in 1995, and platinum in 2018 by the Recording Industry Association of America. A 2003 poll of NME writers ranked the album as the second-greatest album of all time.
About Doolittle (album) in brief
Doolittle is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Pixies, released in April 1989 on 4AD. The album’s offbeat and dark subject material, featuring references to surrealism, Biblical violence, torture and death, contrasts with the clean production sound achieved by the newly hired producer Gil Norton. Doolittle was the Pixies’ first international release, with Elektra Records as the album’s distributor in the United States and PolyGram in Canada. Pixies released two singles from the album, both of which were chart successes on the US chart for Modern Rock Tracks. It has continued to sell consistently well in the years since its release, certified gold in 1995, and platinum in 2018 by the Recording Industry Association of America. A 2003 poll of NME writers ranked the album as the second-greatest album of all time, Rolling Stone placed the album at227 on its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” and Pitchfork ranked it as the fourth best album of the 80s. The band embarked on a European tour with fellow Bostonians Throwing Muses, before beginning a tour of North American states. During this time Black Francis, the group’s frontman and principal songwriter, began to write new material for a future album. In mid- 1988, the band headed to the Boston recording studio Eden Sound, which at the time comprised a small room in the basement of a hair salon. They recorded at the studio for a week, in circumstances similar to the previous year’s the Purple Tape sessions.
Versions of the newly composed songs were recorded during several sessions for John Peel’s radio show in 1988, while a live recording of “Hey” appeared on a free EP circulated with a 1988 edition of Sounds. After completing the demo tape, band manager Ken Goes suggested two producers for the album; Liverpudlian Gil Norton and American Ed Stasium. Norton arrived in Boston on October 31, 1988, and first visited Francis’ apartment to review the album’s demos. He spent a further two weeks in pre-production to familiarise himself with the Pixie’s sound. Francis had no preference, although Ivo Watts-Russell, head of the band’s label 4AD, wanted Norton to produce the next album. The group had previously worked with Norton while recording the single version of “Gigantic” in May 1988. During production, Norton recruited Steve Haigler, whom he had worked with at Apache Studios, to oversee production and record further tracks. The sessions lasted three weeks, concluding on November 23, with a song being recorded a day early. This was the amount spent on Surfer Rosa, with two assistant recording engineers and two second assistants assigned to the project. The Pixies spent a amount of USD 40,000, excluding producer fees, however, it quadrupled the amount they had spent on the previous album, Surfer This. In retrospect, album tracks such as “Debaser”, “Monkey Gone to Heaven”, and “Hey” are highly acclaimed by critics.
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