The Breeders
Pod

THE REVIEW

I just can't bring myself to review Doggerel, the latest work by the Pixies. What a shame, what a disappointment. Let's just say it was nice. And that I could never have imagined that a handful of songs could give me so much, filling and coloring my life for so long. Let that be enough for me. To console myself, I take refuge in the past and listen to the first album by the Breeders once again. And by once again, I mean for the five hundredth time, give or take. As they say, you never forget your first love. And I fell madly in love with this album and its leader right after the first prank by the Boston goblins, that Trompe le Monde in which it became clear that the reins of the project were now in the hands of the big guy, and that she, the divine, had become, unbelievably, too much for the project. I say unbelievably because Kim Deal remained in stunning artistic form during those years. This is demonstrated in this debut work of raw (thanks, Steve Albini) and dark beauty conceived together with Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses. An album that the good Kurt Cobain ranked highly in his personal chart, and that paved the way for the much more significant success of Last Splash and its Cannonball, in heavy rotation on MTV for quite a while. An album that reflects the complexity of a complex woman, worn down by her own ghosts but at the same time smiling, amused, welcoming. The songs are the unsettling product of these contradictions, conceived following only partially Pixies-related rules, and instead endowed with their own equally surprising identity. It starts with "Glorious," and for me, that would already be enough. The painful progression in 4/4 of a story of sexual abuse where each instrument bleeds something that has nothing to do with either the Pixies or grunge. A side road, musically simple and simultaneously dark, hostile. "Doe" brightens the atmosphere, but it's a deceit; they're two kids on acid wanting to burn their city. "Happiness is a warm gun" kicks the original's butt (and we're talking about the Beatles) pairing with another Beatles cover by Pixies (I'm talking about Honey Pie, another case of violent devotion to the white album, the root of many things). And I don't want to tire you, so I'll just mention "Fortunately Gone," which I long considered my perfect pop song and which even now, more than 30 years later, reminds me of the affection I felt for that high school friend who makes you laugh, makes you cry, the one you smoke your first joint with, the one who comforts you when things don't go well with the good-looking one of the moment, the one you'll always remain friends with; the one who at some point you see isn't herself anymore, who has something strange in her eyes, something you can't decipher and for some reason scares you because it feels like it's taking her away from you. Well, let me tell you, if you drifted apart, it's because of something described in the folds of this small, memorable, and mysterious album.