Doolittle was especially well received in Europe, where the British music weeklies Melody Maker and Sounds named it their album of the year.

Pixies' main songwriter and lead vocalist Black Francis wrote the idiosyncratic lyrics, which allude to surrealist imagery, biblical violence, and descriptions of torture and death.

The album is praised for its "quiet/loud" dynamic, which was achieved through subdued verses that are founded on Kim Deal's bass patterns and David Lovering's drums.

[1] Multiple cover photographs of Pixies were published in Melody Maker as the album peaked at number one on New Musical Express's (NME) Indie Chart.

[5] After completing the demo tape, the band's manager Ken Goes suggested two producers: Liverpudlian Gil Norton and American Ed Stasium.

They spent two days analyzing the songs' structures and arrangements, and two weeks in pre-production as Norton familiarized himself with Pixies' sound.

This was a relatively modest sum for a large, late-1980s independent record label but four times the amount spent on their debut Surfer Rosa.

[11] During the final mixing, Norton smoothed the band's rough edges using tight compression, and adding reverb and delay to the guitars, which he then tracked in multiple layers.

"There Goes My Gun" was originally a much-faster and shorter Hüsker Dü-style song; on Norton's advice, Francis slowed the tempo while "Debaser" was given an extended coda.

Albini's recording emphasizes Francis's abrasive guitars that both popularized the band and sealed his reputation, leading to later work with musicians such as Nirvana and PJ Harvey.

[12] Doolittle opens with "Debaser", which is described as a "noisy surf-punk" song[23] and widely considered important in Pixies' crossover to the mainstream.

The track, which is a live favorite, contains an extended coda in which, according to the music critic Rob Hughes, the bassline is overlain with Santiago's "frenzied guitar riffage ... at full tilt as the song hurtles to its climax".

[23] Francis's lyrics, which he wrote while an anthropology student at University of Massachusetts Amherst, refer to "slicing up eyeballs", referencing Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 film Un Chien Andalou.

The song is written in D major and opens with Francis playing a short chord progression that is backed by Deal's bass guitar.

[36] The track is over-dubbed with cellos and violins, which made Norton nervous because it took the band "outside [their] usual parameters", which they had earlier believed "we weren't ever going to do on a Pixies song".

[40] The lyrics of "Crackity Jones" were inspired by Francis's one-month stay in Puerto Rico as a student, when he shared a "seedy" high-rise apartment with a "weirdo, psycho, gay roommate".

[46] Because it was his only time providing vocals for a Pixies track, Lovering said on the day of recording, he was so nervous he "[knocked back] a lot of vodka".

"Gouge Away" is built on Deal's three-note bass part (G♯/B/E) and a tight Lovering drum pattern, which Sisario has described as a "kind of gothic dance groove".

The "loud part" occurs in the verses, when both Santiago and Francis follow the bass progression using heavily distorted guitar chords.

[26][51] Photographer Simon Larbalestier and graphic artist Vaughan Oliver, who had worked on the Pixies' previous albums Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, designed the artwork of Doolittle.

[54] Around the time Oliver decided on the cover art, Francis discarded the album's working title Whore, worrying "people were going to think I was some kind of anti-Catholic or that I'd been raised Catholic and trying to get into this Catholic naughty-boy stuff ... A monkey with a halo, calling it Whore, that would bring all kinds of shit that wouldn't be true.

"[55] The American label Elektra Records began to take interest in Pixies around October 1988 and signed the band following a bidding war.

The label also exposed the album's lead single "Monkey Gone to Heaven" to key major and local radio stations.

[17] Following the critically acclaimed album Surfer Rosa, Doolittle was highly anticipated; it received near-universal positive reviews, especially from the UK and European music press.

[17][23] NME's Edwin Pouncey wrote: "the songs on Doolittle have the power to make you literally jump out of your skin with excitement".

[71] Q critic Peter Kane wrote the album's "carefully structured noise and straightforward rhythmic insistence makes perfect sense".

[72] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice wrote: "They're in love and they don't know why—with rock and roll, which is heartening in a time when so many college dropouts have lost touch with the verities.

[89] A 2002 Rolling Stone review gave it the maximum score of five stars, writing it laid the "groundwork for Nineties rock".

[90] PopMatters included it in their list of the "12 Essential 1980s Alternative Rock Albums" saying, "Doolittle captured the musicians at the top of their game".

"[96] Norton was frequently credited with capturing the album's dynamics and became highly sought after by bands wishing to achieve a similar sound.