The Breeders formed when Deal befriended Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses in 1988. After abandoning a joint dance music project, they recorded a country-infused demo with musicians including violinist Carrie Bradley and bassist Ray Holiday in 1989. Impressed by Deal's artistic potential, 4AD co-founder Ivo Watts-Russell funded the album recording. Pod was recorded at the Palladium studio in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was engineered by Steve Albini, with Josephine Wiggs on bass, Britt Walford on drums, and Deal and Donelly on guitar. Albini prioritized the album's sound over technical accomplishment and gave preference to the band's more spontaneous studio performances. The cover art, of a man performing a fertility dance while wearing a belt of eels, was designed by Vaughan Oliver.
Pod reached number 22 in the UK. Critics praised the album for its minimal instrumentation and dark, sexual lyrics, and compared it to Deal's work with the Pixies. Pitchfork ranked it number 81 on its list of the best albums of the 1990s.
Background
Tanya Donelly (shown) and Kim Deal started the Breeders in 1989,[1] after becoming friends the previous year.[2]
In 1988, Kim Deal of the Pixies became friends with Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses when the bands toured Europe together,[2] and she and Donelly played guitar, drank,[3] and shared musical ideas.[4] They often went clubbing together during the tour and in the bands' hometown of Boston.[5][6] At a Sugarcubes concert, dance music was playing between sets,[7] and the two drunkenly decided to write and record dance songs.[7][8] They envisioned an "organic dance band" that consisted of Deal on bass, Donelly on guitar, and two drummers.[3] They recorded Donelly's composition "Rise" with Throwing Muses' David Narcizo,[8] and planned more originals, as well as a cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan's "Tell Me Something Good".[3]
One year and a half passed after their recording of "Rise", during which Donnelly was distracted by drugs and by her boyfriend, and Deal by the worsening relationships in the Pixies.[2] During this time, the friends decided that their attempt at dance music was not working, and abandoned it.[6][7] They resolved to repurpose their songs for a different musical genre.[4] Deal became more serious about her work with Donnelly when her Pixies bandmate Black Francis decided to do a solo tour, feeling she too could pursue other projects.[2] Because the Pixies and Throwing Muses had different American record labels, contractually Deal and Donelly could not both be the main songwriters for their joint project.[9] They focused on Deal's compositions for what would become Pod, intending to use Donelly's songs for a subsequent album.[9][n 1]
Demo
In 1989 Deal and Donelly recorded a country-influenced demo, with violinist Carrie Bradley of Ed's Redeeming Qualities, bassist Ray Holiday, and different drummers throughout the sessions.[2][12]Paul Kolderie engineered several of the songs, but Deal viewed the sound as "too clean" and asked Joe Harvard of Fort Apache Studios[13] to remix.[14] Deal called the project "the Breeders", a name she and her sister Kelley had used when performing as teenagers.[6] The name comes from a slang term used by homosexuals to refer to heterosexuals, which Deal found amusing.[2]
Around this time, the Breeders performed at the Rat music venue in Boston, and were described by the local Phoenix as a female supergroup.[15]Ivo Watts-Russell, co-founder of the Pixies' and Throwing Muses' label 4AD, was enthusiastic about the demo and Deal's potential as an artist.[2][15] He gave the band a budget of $11,000 to record an album.[2][15]
Although Deal was the bassist with the Pixies, she wanted to play guitar for the Breeders, feeling it was an easier instrument to play while singing.[2][16] She recruited Josephine Wiggs of the Perfect Disaster as bassist; the Perfect Disaster had opened for the Pixies at shows in London in 1988 or 1989.[2][16][17] To engineer the album, Deal employed Steve Albini,[18] who had engineered the Pixies' album Surfer Rosa.[19] Deal hoped to form an all-female band, "[like] the Bangles from Hell".[20] She wanted Kelley to be the Breeders' drummer, but Kelley could not take time away from her program analyst job.[18][n 2] Albini suggested they try Britt Walford of Slint as an alternative.[18][22][n 3] Before recording began, Deal, Wiggs, and Walford rehearsed for a week at Wiggs' house in Bedfordshire, England, before joining Donelly in London for further rehearsals.[16] Albini was involved in the pre-production of the songs, which Donelly found beneficial.[23]
Recording
The Breeders recorded with John Peel during studio time left over from their Pod session.[24]
Pod was recorded in December 1989.[25] At the suggestion of Watts-Russell,[26] they worked at the Palladium studio[13] in Scotland,[27] a house with recording equipment on the first floor and bedrooms upstairs.[16] The band sometimes recorded wearing their pyjamas and went to a local pub without changing.[28] The studio was booked for two weeks, but the album took only half of this to record. During the remaining time, the Breeders recorded a John Peel session, and a television crew filmed a video of the band.[24]
According to writer Martin Aston, Albini focused on live performances and quick takes;[18] Wiggs has said his "hands-off" approach had a big influence on how the recordings turned out.[29] Albini's main concern was achieving the best sound from the equipment, rather than seeking the best technical performances; as long as the group succeeded in playing each song all the way through, he considered it good enough for the album.[16] He also convinced the band to reduce the number of harmonies and give more prominence to Deal's vocals; Donelly believes this made the performances "more effective and sadder and ... focused".[30]
Albini felt that Walford's drumming was an important part of the album's appeal.[22] Walford was 19 years old at the time, and a confident and "hard-hitting" drummer who typically played one of his drums behind the beat.[16] The tempo of the songs was faster than Wiggs had expected; this arose in part because Deal could not keep her breath long enough sing in a slower and longer manner.[16]
Music and lyrics
Pod has minimal instrumentation.[31]Colin Larkin, in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music, likened Pod to the Pixies' music, with threatening melodies and loud, resounding guitars.[32]The New York Times' Karen Schoemer also found similiarities, citing Pod's "angular melodies, shattered tempos and screeching dynamics", but felt it nonetheless had its own identity.[33] Unlike the demo, the album does not have a country-influenced sound.[18]
Critics discussed the album's sinister, sexual,[31] youthful feel.[24] Matt LeMay of Pitchfork wrote that Deal's singing is spooky, and suggests a mythical siren or a young girl hiding a weapon;[34]Melody Maker's Ted Mico similarly compared the feel of the songs to the innocent-looking girl in Poltergeist from whose mouth blood is seen dribbling.[17] Albini said that "there was a simultaneous charm to Kim's presentation to her music that's both childlike and giddy and also completely mature and kind of dirty ... [it had a] sort of girlish fascination with things that were pretty but it was also kind of horny. That was a juxtaposition that, at the time, was unusual. You didn't get a lot of knowing winks from female artists at the time."[24]
Critics have cited "Doe" as encapsulating qualities heard in multiple tracks on Pod, including its "pretty" and "wrenching" aspects (Pitchfork's Matt Lemay)[34] and its "good-natured[ness]" (AllMusic's Heather Phares).[35]
Deal acknowledged that many of the songs are sexual in nature.[20] "Glorious", Pod's slow-paced first track,[32][36] is about an adult who has fuzzy but pleasant memories of being molested as a child by an aunt.[20] It and the next song, "Doe", were co-written by Ray Halliday.[13] In "Doe", a schizophrenic teenage couple lose their grasp of reality after taking too much Thorazine; in a delusional state of Bambi-like innocence, they plan to burn down their town.[20] LeMay described this track as possessing a beautiful, gripping quality,[34] while NME's Steve Lamacq cited it as an example of using reduced instrumentation to good effect ("stripped down but punchy").[37]
Larkin believes that the band's tense cover of the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" achieves a friction that the original only hints at,[32] and Lamacq commented on its tight sound and prominent drum part.[37] The Breeders recorded the song at the suggestion of Watts-Russell.[18][38] "Oh!" has—according to Aston—a slow tempo, restrained drumming, a sad violin performance by Carrie Bradley, and unexpectedly raw singing by Deal.[18] She had planned to use the title "The Insect Song"; it tells the story of one insect encouraging others, hoping they do not get stepped on.[20]
Deal described "Hellbound", about a fetus that lives on after an abortion, as "kinda like a heavy metal hymnal, 'We're all hellbound.'"[20] She cited the line "It lives, despite the knives internal" as containing the most embarrassing lyrics she has written.[39] Before recording, the other band members teased her about the line, but since she could not think of a better alternative, she kept the phrase but mumbled the line to make the words harder to understand.[40] For Sasha Alcott, writing for the Boston Herald, the song contains elements of "fierce head-banging sing-a-long", as well as gentle whimsy.[41] About "When I Was a Painter", the next track, Lamacq was struck by Deal's gruff vocals and praised its stop-start guitar riff.[37] Critic Rob Sheffield named the song as a highlight,[42] and Piers Clifton interpreted it as being about strange or otherwise unsatisfying sex.[43]
Side 2 of the LP version starts with "Fortunately Gone", which Lamacq and reviewer Wif Stenger have pointed to as an appealing pop-flavored beginning for the album's second half.[37][44] Deal had originally practiced the song with Kelley several years previously.[20] It concerns a woman who has gone to the afterlife but continues watching over her lover on earth; she adores him so obsessively that she cannot give him up even after death.[20] "Iris" was interpreted by Larkin and Stenger as being about menstruation.[32][44] In a 1990 interview, Deal said the song related to something "like a pea pod flowering and then getting ripe and stinky", and connected it to the Surrealists' "associat[ing] women with fish".[20] Writer Simon Reynolds commented on Deal's wolfish, staccato delivery of the repeated word "Oh!" in the chorus, as well as the "little gashes of gruelling, grainy feedback".[45]
A recurring sexual dream of Walford's is the subject of "Opened".[20] The track features a buoyant rhythm[18] and was described by Stenger as exhilarating and bringing the listener to somewhere between reality and the supernatural.[44] "Only in 3s", which Deal wrote with Donelly,[13] is about a ménage à trois sexual relationship.[20]AllMusic's Heather Phares characterized the recording as "sensual", and described it as more benign and friendly-sounding than the Pixies.[35]
"Lime House" was described by a Billboard review as feeling "avant-garage",[46] and concerns Sherlock Holmes spending long and comfortable hours in an opium den.[20] Wiggs co-wrote and played Spanish guitar on the final track, "Metal Man".[13] The song contains harmonies between her and Deal;[37] Wiggs' spoken vocals were compared by Stenger to those of the group Wire[44] and by Reynolds to the vocal style of Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon.[45] Aston likened the melody to the Pixies' "Cactus".[18]
Release
Pod was released in the UK on May 29, 1990 by 4AD.[47] For US distribution, 4AD originally licensed it to Rough Trade.[48] After Rough Trade's distribution wing went into receivership in 1991,[49] American distribution for the album was picked up by Elektra Records.[50] The album reached number 22 in the UK,[51] where it was promoted by a full-page ad in Melody Maker,[52] and number 73 in the Netherlands.[53]
Deal took the idea for the album's name from a painting that she saw in Boston.[48] The cover art was designed by longtime 4AD album designer Vaughan Oliver and employs photography by Kevin Westenberg.[13] Oliver, in an attempt to get romantic attention from Deal, whom he believed would appreciate the humor, attached a belt of dead eels over his underwear, which he intended to resemble phallics.[54] He performed a fertility dance, while Westenberg took pictures of him using a long exposure to achieve the blurring and other visual effects.[55]
Several music critics have favorably compared the album to Deal's work with the Pixies. Writing for AllMusic, Phares described it as a "vibrantly creative debut" that was better than the Pixies' 1990 album Bossanova, and argued that the Pixies should record more of Deal's compositions.[35] William Van Meter, Rob Sheffield, and Steve Kandell of Spin each felt Pod was at least equal to the Pixies; Kandell and Sheffield mentioned tracks including "Fortunately Gone" as superior to songs by that group. Kandell noted Pod appealed to fans of the Pixies' "Gigantic", which was written by Deal.[42][58][59]
The Rough Guide to Rock's Piers Clifton and Melody Maker's Simon Reynolds criticized Pod as lacking energy compared to the Pixies' work. To Clifton, it was "plodding";[43] Reynolds felt it was "inhibited, moribund, stilted" and "never [let] it rip like the Pixies", and added that "Whenever a song gathers momentum or thrust, [the Breeders] throw in a weird bit, a gear change or an abrupt stop. They seem unhappy with the idea of simple rock exuberance."[45] Steve Taylor of The A to X of Alternative Music also found Pod inferior to the music of the Pixies, but was impressed with Deal's ability to move from bass to guitar.[60]
Wif Stenger of Trouser Press called the first side "a bit shaky" but considered side 2 to be "damn near perfect".[44]NME's Steve Lamacq described the album as "a tight-ish piece of tantalising rock", and said that listeners who found it too minimalist would soon warm to it.[37] Karen Schoemer of The New York Times praised Pod's intelligence and originality.[33]
Legacy
Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain described Pod as one of his favorite albums,[n 4] saying: "The way they structure [the songs is] totally unique, very atmospheric."[62] In 2007, Albini said he felt Pod was among the best albums he had engineered;[64] a 2015 article in Stereogum ranked it as Albini's eighth best album.[65] Donelly described it as the "truest" of her albums: "It really feels exactly the way it was when we were doing it."[28] Wiggs described her ongoing fondness for Pod, and recalls that everyone in the making of the album were dedicated and attentive.[29] In 2003, Pitchfork placed the album as the 81st best of the 1990s.[34]NME and The Guardian have ranked the Breeders' version of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" among the best covers of Beatles songs.[66][67]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Kim Deal, except where noted
^Following Pod's release, Deal and Donelly did record a demo of the latter's songs in preparation for the Breeders' second album. However, Donelly ended up leaving the group soon after—in 1991—and instead used the compositions for the first album of the new band she formed, Belly. Before parting from the Breeders, she also played on their Safari EP, released in 1992,[10] but no Donelly compositions appeared on the EP.[11]
^Kelley Deal later joined the Breeders, and played guitar on Safari.[11][21]
^Walford used the pseudonym Shannon Daughton because he did not want his contribution to the album to overshadow his role in Slint.[1]
^In a 1992 article in Melody Maker, he called it his favorite album.[62] In his journals, he listed it as his seventh and then third favorite.[63]
^V23 was a graphic design studio at which Oliver and others made art for record companies.[68]
"The Breeders Set Release Date for 'Pod'". Melody Maker. Vol. 66, no. 20. May 19, 1990.
"Breeders: Singles/Albums". Theofficialcharts.com. Archived from the original on October 10, 2016. Retrieved April 28, 2016. ((cite web)): |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; October 25, 2015 suggested (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Christgau, Robert. "The Breeders". Consumer Guide Reviews. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 17, 2016. ((cite web)): Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Cobain, Kurt (August 29, 1992). "Rebellious: Kurt Cobain of Nirvana talks about the records that changed his life". Melody Maker. Vol. 68, no. 35. ((cite magazine)): Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Phares, Heather. "The Breeders: Pod". AllMusic. Archived from the original on June 2, 2012. Retrieved October 12, 2016. ((cite web)): Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Spitz, Marc (September 2004). "Life to the Pixies". Spin. Archived from the original on October 19, 2016. Retrieved October 19, 2016. ((cite web)): Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
"Surfer Rosa Credits". AllMusic. Archived from the original on May 1, 2016. Retrieved November 19, 2016. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
Van Meter, William (June 1, 2002). "Old Deal: Five Kim Classics". Spin. Archived from the original on January 9, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2017. ((cite web)): Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
"Zoeken naar: Breeders" (in Dutch). Dutch Charts. Archived from the original on October 10, 2016. Retrieved October 10, 2016. ((cite web)): Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
