Doolittle

The cover features a photograph by Simon Larbalestier — the Pixies' regular visual collaborator — depicting a monkey (a macaque) in a surreal, heavily manipulated composition. The image has been distorted through analog photographic techniques: multiple exposures, unusual printing processes, and physical manipulation of the negatives. The result is an image that is simultaneously naturalistic and dreamlike, concrete and abstract.

Larbalestier's photographic approach for the Pixies was distinctive: he used experimental analog techniques to create images that existed in a space between photography and abstract art. He would overlay images, shoot through distorting materials, and use non-standard developing processes. His work with the band (spanning Surfer Rosa, Doolittle, Bossanova, and Trompe le Monde) created one of the most cohesive visual identities in alternative rock.

The monkey connects to the album's recurring themes of nature, primitivism, evolution, and the relationship between humans and animals. Black Francis (Charles Thompson), the band's songwriter, was obsessed with surrealist juxtapositions — placing the sacred next to the profane, the civilized next to the primitive. Songs on Doolittle reference the Old Testament, body horror, sliced eyeballs (a nod to Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou), underwater creatures, and the Spanish Civil War. The monkey image captures this quality of being just slightly off, just slightly wrong — like something from a nature documentary that has been subtly corrupted.

The album title itself is a reference to Dr. Dolittle — the fictional doctor who could speak to animals — connecting the cover image to the album's preoccupation with communication across species and forms.

Doolittle is widely regarded as one of the greatest alternative rock albums ever made and was a key influence on Nirvana (Kurt Cobain explicitly credited the Pixies as a primary inspiration). Larbalestier's cover art contributed to the 4AD label's reputation for exceptional visual design and helped establish a visual language for the louder, more aggressive strain of indie rock that emerged in the late 1980s.