The Breeders

Since 1989 · United States

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Last Splash (1993)

Last Splash turns Kim Deal's gift for the deceptively simple hook loose over a rhythm section that never quite sits still, lurching between surf-rock, sludge and something close to pop. "Cannonball" is the one everyone knows -- built on a rubbery bassline and a distorted vocal intro that sounded like nothing else on 1993 radio -- but "Divine Hammer" and "Saints" work the same instinct at different speeds. Josephine Wiggs's bass carries more melody than most bands give their guitars. It remains the rare album that went platinum without smoothing away a single one of its odd edges.

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The Breeders

Last Splash · 1993

The Breeders began in 1989 as a side project for Kim Deal, then the bassist in Pixies, and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses, with Josephine Wiggs on bass and Slint's Britt Walford drumming under a pseudonym. Pod (1990), recorded by Steve Albini, established a sound built on Deal's plainspoken melodies and a rhythm section that treated space as an instrument. Kurt Cobain called it one of his favourite albums and singled out the way the songs were structured, and Deal has said she believes Pod is why Nirvana later hired Albini for In Utero.

By Last Splash (1993) the lineup had changed — Donelly had left to form Belly, and Deal's twin sister Kelley had joined on guitar — and the band became, briefly, a genuine commercial force. "Cannonball" went into heavy MTV rotation and the album went platinum, an outcome that sat awkwardly with a group whose instincts ran to the lopsided and the half-finished. Long silences followed, with Title TK (2002) and All Nerve (2018) arriving more than a decade apart, though the Last Splash lineup eventually reconvened and has held together since.