Doolittle - debaser

I bought this ages ago because it came so highly recommended and didn’t like it at all. I tried it out again today.

I think I get it now.

But it would be so much better if their frontman (I won’t call him “singer”) wasn’t completely and utterly shit at actually, well, singing.

I think it was music columnist Gina Arnold who once commented that Kim Deal and Frank Black dueting on ‘Silver’ sounds a lot like one Neil Young :D.

I find his voice appropriate to the material, but then again he once said in a song that “he wants to a singer like Lou Reed” - another rather polarizing punk vocalist ( well “proto-punk” for Reed and “post-punk” for Black ).

I think FrankBlackFrancisCharlesThompson has a pretty cool voice actually, though his more shouty songs (of which Debaser is one) don’t tend to highlight his traditional singing skills as much.

I’ve Seen Your Picture from his album with The Catholics, Dog In the Sand. A fairly credible Mick Jagger impression, I’ve always thought. No idea why the video is five minutes long when the song is about 2:50.

I love this song. Thanks for reminding me to listen to it. :slight_smile:

Debaser? Decent song, I guess. If you’re into that sort of thing.

:smiley:

Love the band, song, and album. Saw them perform it live a couple years back when they were doing their “Lost Cities” tour, which included a live playthrough of the whole Doolittle album. As for Frank Black/Black Francis’s voice? I think it’s just right for the music. I really couldn’t and wouldn’t want to imagine them with a more traditional rock voice. It’d be kind of like trying to replace Joey Santiago’s oddball guitar with a session guitarist. It’s part and parcel of the whole character of the Pixies and their sound.

Reading the OP, I thought he was talking about a song named Debaser by a band called Doolittle. I was like, hey, that’s a total Pixies rip-off!

He confused himself a little

Don’t feel bad. It’s probably my least favorite song on the album.

Ooh, are we playing Mad Libs? I like Beggar’s Banquet by Sympathy for the Devil.

Nitpick of nitpicks: it’s"Pixies" not “the Pixies.” Frank Black is fine as long as he isn’t speaking Spanish.

He (the OP) meant the title to this thread to be “Pixies - Doolittle”. He doesn’t know how the name of the first track got in there.

[quote=“thelurkinghorror, post:10, topic:681755”]

Nitpick of nitpicks: it’s"Pixies" not “the Pixies.” /QUOTE]

Both are fine. See signature here. But, yeah, on all the official albums, it just says “Pixies.” Still, in conversation, I would say “the Pixies,” because “Pixies” on its own in most contexts sounds stupid. For example, “Did you hear the new Pixies album”? Sounds fine. “Did you hear the new album by Pixies?” Sounds completely wrong to my ears.