When thinking about peak-era Pixies or the Pixies in their prime, most fans and critics (including this one) point to their 1989 album Doolittle as representing their best work. Granted, plenty of people would be fully justified in voting for 1988’s slightly more raw/eccentric Surfer Rosa, or maybe even the somewhat underrated Trompe le Monde (from 1991). Still, whatever your preference, it’s hard to argue that Doolittle wasn’t their most well-rounded effort with their best collection of great songs (p.s. no offense to all the Bossonova fans out there, which is a pretty great album, it’s right, too)! And one of those great songs found on Doolittle is “Monkey Gone to Heaven”, a tune that kind of captures the essence of the Pixies in a brilliant 3-minute little package.
Check out this performance of the track on the short-lived TV show Sunday Night (hosted by David Sanborn) live from 1989, which finds the band delivering their patented brand of buoyantly corrosive alt-rock (with some dark/existential undercurrents) in a compelling fashion. The Pixies in their prime? It would get this writer’s vote, but you be the judge:
