Lovesongs for Underdogs

Lovesongs for Underdogs is the solo debut album by Tanya Donelly, who had formerly recorded with Throwing Muses, The Breeders, and Belly. It was released on September 9, 1997. Two singles were released for promotion of the album. "Pretty Deep" was released in July 1997, while "The Bright Light" was released in October 1997. In the U.S both 4AD released singles were released in two parts, each including 2 newly released B-Sides. "Pretty Deep" featured "Spaghetti", "Morna", "These Days" and "Influenza". "The Bright Light" featured "Bury Me", "How Can You Sleep?", "Life On Sirius" and "Moon Over Boston". A music video for each single was produced and aired on Vh1 and MTV2. Both videos differed highly in creative and artistic direction from previous Belly videos and exclusively featured Tanya solo, in movie like settings. "Pretty Deep" and "The Bright Light" enjoyed heavy airplay on Triple A radiostations in the U.S Northeast.

Track listing

All songs by Tanya Donelly except where noted.

1. "Pretty Deep" – 4:22
2. "The Bright Light" – 3:21
3. "Landspeed Song" – 3:34
4. "Mysteries of the Unexplained" – 4:52
5. "Lantern" – 3:10
6. "Acrobat" (Donelly, Dean Fisher) – 3:30
7. "Breathe Around You" – 2:56
8. "Bum" – 3:09
9. "Clipped" – 4:01
10. "Goat Girl" – 2:16
11. "Manna" – 5:26
12. "Swoon" – 4:27

Personnel

• Tanya Donelly – guitar, keyboards, vocals
• Dean Fisher – acoustic guitar, bass guitar, percussion, accordion, keyboards
• Wally Gagel – bass, percussion, keyboards, drum machine
• Rich Gilbert – guitar, accordion, bass, keyboards, saw
• Stacy Jones – drums
• David Lovering – drums
• Hilken Mancini – background vocals
• David Narcizo – drums
• Chris Toppin – background vocals
• Jonathan Williams – electric guitar

Production

• Producers: Tanya Donelly, Wally Gagel, Gary Smith
• Engineers: Matthew Ellard, Wally Gagel, Dan McLoughlin
• Assistant engineers: Jesse Henderson, Suzanne Kapa, Kelly Wohlford
• Mixing: Wally Gagel, Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade
• Mixing assistant: Dave Kirkpatrick
• Mastering: Brian Lee
• Drum Technician: Carl Plaster
• Arrangers: Tanya Donelly, Wally Gagel
• Design: Chris Bigg
• Photography: Andrew Catlin

Charts

Album – Billboard (North America)

The album was very popular in the Northeast, hitting Billboard's Northeast Heatseekers chart, and remaining for 4 weeks.