Bob’s Jukebox: Doolittle

The Pixies are a highly influential band, having influenced Smashing Pumpkins, PJ Harvey, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Strokes, Modest Mouse, and more (https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/09/28/pixies-boston-rock-surfer-rosa-come-on-pilgrim), and some of my favorite songs are Pixies covers or remixes. I guess it’s kind of odd then that I can’t honestly say I like an entire Pixies album. If anything, I actually hate an entire Pixies album. But that’s not tonight’s topic (thankfully). Tonight, we’re here for Doolittle.

The sound is raw, wild, and strange. It’s also kind of full of itself and halfway up its own ass. I guess you take the good with the bad on this one. The Pixies play with sound on a collapsing wavefront of conventionality, and more often than not they’re out on the far side. Where I remember them from the most is hearing Doolittle being played, in its entirety, fairly regularly at the Dharma Coffeehouse back in the early to mid-90s.

The thing you have to understand about Dharma was that it wasn’t like you think of a coffeehouse today, since most people think of a Starbuck’s clone or something similar, and even if it has a little more personality than that you’re still probably picturing a bunch of people sitting around staring at their tablets or phones, connected to the free Wi-Fi and taking up space all day. So let me start by pointing you back the last sentence in the previous paragraph: “back in the early to mid-90s.” I remember people carrying pagers at Dharma. And not a lot of them, either. What I do remember is a lot of people showing up late in the evening and early night and staying all night long, sitting around drinking coffee, playing cards, and listening to music. Because the only networks that existed back then were LANs, and the only thing wireless was a cordless phone you might have in your house.

Something else Dharma had in plentiful supply was extremely colorful patrons (and staff) who tended to engender strong reactions (positive or negative varied from individual to individual). Which is something it has in common with this album. I don’t really have neutral or “meh” reactions to the songs on this album. Some of these songs I love, and I was really looking forward to reviewing this album because it’s been a while since I have heard them. I expected it would be like hanging out with old friends who I haven’t seen in a while. But I forgot that the assholes show up as well, and I can’t stand them. I usually just skip over those songs, but I am committed to listening to entire albums to get the “full experience”, and honestly, the full experience of the Pixies is that I don’t intend to listen to the Pixies again for a very, very long time.

The album starts off pretty good with “Debaser”, reminding me that this is going to be a weird ride but opening me up to a different experience than I normally get. “Tame” immediately comes behind it to let me know this isn’t going to be 100% an album I’m going to enjoy. That’s when they decide to screw with my head by throwing the four best songs on the album almost right in a row with only one mostly terrible song in the middle of them (“Wave of Mutilation”, one of the best Pixies songs in existence, “I Bleed”, “Here Comes Your Man”, the aforementioned somewhat execrable “Dead”, and then “Monkey Gone to Heaven”). “Mr. Grieves” holds the dubious distinction of being the only song on the album I have no strong feelings about either way. I suppose that’s rather appropriate, as it is right at the transition point between the “mostly good” half of the album and the “almost entirely trash” half of the album. “La La Love You” is the only good song on the back half of the album, although “Hey” is decent. Seriously, on “No 13 Baby” I thought I was listening to Adam Sandler trying to do alt rock. It was just bad.

So tough recommendation time. I would say if you like alt rock, try to listen to as many of these songs as you can before you buy the album. They’re really all over the place, and just because you like any three, four, or five of them doesn’t tell you you’re going to like the whole album. But if you can get it for a good price and you’re feeling adventurous, it’s worth a shot.