Awesome album of the week: Doolittle

(Courtesy of Elektra Records)

Before it was cool to wear black, faded Nirvana t-shirts, scream out a Smashing Pumpkins song in your car or tell all your hipster friends that you totally found Neutral Milk Hotel before anyone else, the Pixies had already come out with a mind-blowing, music altering album that helped pave the way for their biggest score yet.

That album is their 1989 release Doolittle.

Lead singer and songwriter Frank Black Francis sets the stage with the song “Debaser,” which rose out of the primordial ooze of rock music as a fast-paced track with raw, scratchy vocals and overdubbed guitars. This creates an intense atmosphere that jolts the senses in the way only a true rock ‘n roll band can.

The Pixies are no strangers to dark subject matter, and Doolittle is certainly no exception to this theme.

Songs like “I Bleed,” “Dead” and “Wave of Mutilation” might seem like silly, angst-ridden songs written by a teenager in the throes of despair and rebellion, but the Pixies are poets. This is most evident in the way Francis croons “I’ve kissed mermaids, rode the El Nino / Walked the sand with the crustaceans / Could find my way to Mariana,” in “Wave of Mutilation.”

Perhaps the most strikingly original and offbeat song is their single, “Here Comes Your Man,” a quirky pop tune that may provide a welcome relief from the loud, sporadic riffs of other songs on Doolittle.

While the Pixie’s may seem to rely heavily on simple chord progressions, “Monkey Gone to Heaven” features violins and cellos, bassist Kim Deal’s feminine vocals and Black Francis sings his lyrics in such a monotone, easy-speaking way that the song possess a cryptic quality to it.

In “La La Love You,” sung by drummer David Lovering, the Pixies sarcastically scratch at the idea of love, quietly chanting, “First base / Second base / Third base / Home run” followed by a cat-call whistle. Biting wit and Lovering’s smooth vocals provide the kind of awkward beauty reminiscent of The Smiths’ Morrissey.

“Gouge Away,” the Pixies last track on the album, is a sleek ride that starts off slow and melodic, only to build into a heavy set with whining guitars, gut wrenching screams, and a passion rarely found in the flannel-wearing grunge bands that were stepping into the 90s.

There are few easy song transitions on the album. Deal’s soft harmonies in one song are suddenly interrupted by Francis’ powerful squeals on the next. It is this imperfection that makes the Pixies truly brilliant—their ability to dismiss conventional ideas of what music should be to instead produce something so original and fresh that it’s hard not to feel rewarded after listening to Doolittle in its fifteen-song entirety.

Through all the muck of radio-friendly “rock” that played throughout the 90s, the Pixies were one of few who were able to stay true to their music, brushing aside catchy but empty hooks and redundant lyrics that plagued so many other bands at the time.

Besides, if it weren’t for Black Francis setting the stage, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock would never have a future in yelping.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sebastian Murdock at Sebastian.Murdock@colorado.edu.