Oh!

I really have no idea what Kim deal is going on about for the majority of ‘Pod’.  And to be honest, I don’t care, it’s too catchy to let it bother me.  As much as I like lyrics that mean something, I can quite happily sing along to something that is complete gobbledegook as long as the words are phonetically nice sounding and as long as they paint a nice picture.  And on the Breeders’ debut, they are.  Recorded in 1989 and released the following year (that’s 1990 to you, hairdressers) it really is one of the poppiest folk-ish albums you’ll hear.  I say folk-ish because personally, I think it sounds quite folky.  Yeah, there are plenty of loud indie-rock moments, but the feel of it, most of the instrumentation, and the melodies all remind me of folky stuff.  You might disagree, but this is me writing this, not you.  So there.  Anyway, there isn’t really a duff track on this, and not even a non-poppy song, from the glorious opening track, er… ‘Glorious’, to the barely audable ‘Metal Man’.  And you even get a Beatles cover thrown in for good measure.

Recorded initially as a side-project for both Pixies’ Kim Deal and Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donnelly, the album features the first line-up of the Breeders – Deal, Donnelly, Josephine Wiggs (Perfect Disaster) and Britt Walford (Slint) with Carrie Bradley (Ed’s Redeeming Qualities).  With Steve Albini on recording duties, it pretty much sounds ‘as is’, and in my opinion is better than both Pixies’ and Muses’ respective albums that year.

I first heard of the Breeders from a live version of Iris, so maybe that songs a good place to start if you want to check them out.  Or if you want something more straight-ahead poppiness, try ‘Fortunately Gone’, its absolutely gorgeous.

Additionally, I used to have some pre-Pod Breeders demos, which included most of the songs from Pod with a few extras: Silver (which was originally recorded by Pixies’ for Doolittle), Drivin’ on 9 (which would be re-recorded for Last Splash), and You Always Hang Around (which was an absolutely amazing song which would eventually be rewritten and re-recorded as Divine Hammer for Last Splash).  As well as these, there were two songs that didn’t appear on anything: Rave On and Overcome.  Both of these were really quite good – Rave On being a broody but poppy instrumental, and Overcome being another off-kilter pop song, along the lines of Only in 3’s or Limehouse.  According to a tracklist I’ve seen for the Breeders’ upcoming album ‘Mountain Battles’, two songs on it are called Bang On and Overglazed.  I really hope these are the same songs with altered titles.  I doubt it, but it’d be nice.

Anyway, enough rambling, bye!