The Breeders Songs Ranked
The Breeders are an American alternative rock band based in Dayton, Ohio, consisting of members Kim Deal (rhythm guitar, lead vocals), her twin sister Kelley Deal (lead guitar, vocals), Josephine Wiggs (bass guitar, vocals) and Jim Macpherson (drums). The earliest incarnation of the band was formed by Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly in 1989 as a side-project alongside their full-time bands Pixies and Throwing Muses respectively. To record their debut album, 1990’s Pod, Deal and Donelly recruited bassist Josephine Wiggs of The Perfect Disaster and drummer Britt Walford of Slint. Kim’s sister Kelley was brought into the band as a third guitarist (though at the time, Kelley famously had never played guitar before joining the band) in 1992 to record the Safari EP, and shortly thereafter Tanya Donelly left to concentrate full-time on her own new band, Belly, leaving Kelley Deal as the sole lead guitarist, while Britt Walford left as well around the same time. While the band’s first record wasn’t initially a commercial success, the band had developed a following among indie rock fans and praises from people such as Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who cited Pod as one of his all-time favorite albums, the band prepared to record their next album. Here are all of The Breeders songs ranked.
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10. Drivin’ On 9 (Last Splash, 1993)
“This song’s a cover of an Ed’s Redeeming Qualities song originally written and performed by a man. The original has the verse “Looking out my window sill / wondering if you took your pill / wondering if it’s mine” and feels a lot darker than The Breeders version which is still pretty great.”
9. Fortunately Gone (Pod, 1990)
“Not sure when it was written, but it’s featured on Michael “Eyedea” Larson’s acoustic CD that came out after he died, ‘When in Rome, Kill the King’. I like to think it was written for him. A great, talented artist who’s life was cut short early.”
8. Invisible Man (Last Splash, 1993)
“I didn’t like this song for some years. Then one day I listened to it without hearing any of the other songs on the album. It kinda put a new meaning to it, because before that I only thought of the song as an intermission between Cannonball and No Aloha – and how can any song deal take that kind of competition? Anyway, the song is really great and Last Splash is the best album of all time.”
See more: The Breeders Albums Ranked
7. Do You Love Me Now? (Last Splash, 1993)
“This song reminds me of high school and heartbreak and all the bad things you’ll do to get someone back or do to try and forget about them. Love it, it just burns.”
6. Divine Hammer (Last Splash, 1993)
“Divine Hammer” is what The Breeders is all about. Sweetly sexually suggestive lyrics, a ferociously happy melody that is catchy enough to give you whiplash, adorable female vocals and guitar driven fireworks. It remains one of the best songs in the band’s catalog.”
5. Iris (Pod, 1990)
“The song is in reference to the author Iris Murdoch…It’s about staying up all night and reading books and the joy of getting lost in the philosophical musings of Iris Murdoch’s literature.”
See more: Fatboy Slim Songs Ranked
4. Hellbound (Pod, 1990)
“Hellbound would have made a pretty nice alternate title for this thing. The dark sexuality of the whole thing, and the wide-eyed pixie-ish (no pun intended) way that Kim and company go about the whole thing gives it a forbiddingly sexy aura, exacerbated by Steve Albini’s engineering of the whole thing.”
3. No Aloha (Last Splash, 1993)
“The song is pretty easy to break down. It’s about Kim saying goodbye to having a normal life. It’s about how you never say goodbye to the past, you just move on from it without ever realizing it until you’re far down the road of life.”
2. New Year (Last Splash, 1993)
“This is a great album, and just enough ahead of its time to be really relevant. The slightly dirty guitars and the solidly rock drums have that signature early 90s sound, but the multiple layers of guitars, drums, keyboards, vocals, and various other instruments and noises make this album stand out from its contemporaries.”
1. Cannonball (Last Splash, 1993)
“This song is just pure catchiness. Every little thing — the bass line, the drumming, the “ahooooo-hoo”, the guitar noise and twang, the nonsensical lyrics — is just instantly recognizable, completely unforgettable, and totally infectious.”