Album Review: LSXX [Last Splash: 20th Anniversary Edition] by The Breeders

On 1993's Last Splash, former Pixies bassist Kim Deal pulled off a shocker: a record as good as anything by her old band that was also a pop success. With sister Kelley on guitar, Deal churned out sweet, slothy ballads, put a feminist spin on blues cliché and even had a Top 40 hit with the looped-out surf-rocker "Cannonball." This three-disc reissue adds a raft of cool demos, a 1994 concert and four EPs, including two doozies, 1994's Head to Toe and 1992's Safari, where they cover Sebadoh and the Who with an equally sly affection. .

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Before they could legally drink, the Deal twins, armed with one guitar and two mics, were fixtures in the scuzziest bars of Dayton, Ohio, where legend has it their salty-sweet harmonies could make even the motorcycle dudes cry. The year was 1978, maybe 79. Like the bikers, Kim and Kelley listened to Hank Williams and the Everly Brothers; when Kelley was 16 she watched The Song Remains the Same on acid and the souvenir she kept from her trip was this dead-serious conviction that she wanted to be Jimmy Page.

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Big Deal: The Breeders’ best LP reissued as a seven-disc vinyl/3CD boxset on its 20th anniversary…In the red corner: the heavyweight, Charles MK Thompson IV, known to the world as Black Francis. In the blue corner: the maverick, the former “Mrs John Murphy”, Kim Deal. Who was your money on? The guy who wrote 95% of the songs, or the gal who kicked 95% of the ass?In the battle of the post-Pixies projects, Charles was the overwhelming favourite.

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CONSUMER ALERT: This vastly expanded, packed-to-the-gills 20th anniversary reissue of The Breeders’ Last Splash album contains exactly the same version of Last Splash that can currently be found crowding 99-cent CD bins all over the world. No remix. No remaster. No “this is what it was supposed to sound like the first time around” folderol.

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Anniversary packages for beloved records have always been popular with both marketers and bands, and they’ve taken on a special function in the digital age: namely, serving as an excuse to make buying physical albums sexy and fun again. Sometimes it works; sometimes it’s much ado about two new songs and a set of “lost” ones that would’ve been much better off staying hidden. For the 20th birthday of legendary grunge girl-group the Breeders’ seminal album, Last Splash, Kim Deal and company decided to celebrate with a comprehensive set, LSXX, that includes plenty of bang for the buck: Last Splash of course, along with a collection of EPs, rarities, demos and a live recording, Stockholm Syndrome, that works to give the album a perfect context.

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The fetishising of albums celebrating their 20-plus year anniversaries is well underway, as any RC reader will be aware. The desire to make things larger, with more sumptuous looks and exhaustive tracklists keeps stepping up a gear. That said, 4AD’s records were already housed in tactile, colour-treated shifting fields of art, from the mind of the label’s regular designer Vaughan Oliver, so anything as luxurious as a 4AD deluxe edition is bound to be special.

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Darn, I feel old. You’d think I might have felt this way a couple of years ago when Nirvana’s Nevermind turned 20, but it barely registered a blip with me. The Breeders’ Last Splash, on the other hand, turns 20, as it does this year, and I feel like I have to break out the cane and book myself into the retirement home. I’m hard pressed to explain why I feel like I do, because, certainly, Nevermind is much more of a cultural touchstone than Last Splash is, or will ever be, but I think the reason is that some of my high school memories are more wrapped up in Last Splash for one particular reason: I heard it more often in my youthful adventures drivin’ (on 9) somewhere.

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