Favorite Albums: 2000-200447. Breeders, Title TKOriginal position on my Stylus ballot: n/a The two bits of juicy hearsay I half-remember about this album, released almost a decade after Last Splash, are that Kim Deal fell out with Rob Pollard when he told a reporter something along the lines that she was “lost in the world of mid-fi” and that Title TK only came out when Steve Albini sneaked the tapes off to the label behind her back. The former I’m pretty sure I read in Magnet and I have no idea where I read the (admittedly unbelievable) latter, but the album definitely sounds like perfectly imperfect work tapes of band trying to capture a classic stumble, stripping away the easy hooks while making sure no moment can be fully dismissed. As suggested by that fanfare of contradictions you may have already read in Magnet, passing ’90s Indie Rock 101 is a prerequisite for this willfully muffled puppy. But singles “Son Of Three” and  “Huffer” call back to Last Splash’s mad dashes and “Off You” is the strongest hit of Deal’s vocal allure on record. After connecting with those entry points, Title TK is just a big pool of “room sound” and compressed clompers to wade around in.

Favorite Albums: 2000-2004
47. Breeders, Title TK
Original position on my Stylus ballot: n/a

The two bits of juicy hearsay I half-remember about this album, released almost a decade after Last Splash, are that Kim Deal fell out with Rob Pollard when he told a reporter something along the lines that she was “lost in the world of mid-fi” and that Title TK only came out when Steve Albini sneaked the tapes off to the label behind her back. The former I’m pretty sure I read in Magnet and I have no idea where I read the (admittedly unbelievable) latter, but the album definitely sounds like perfectly imperfect work tapes of band trying to capture a classic stumble, stripping away the easy hooks while making sure no moment can be fully dismissed.

As suggested by that fanfare of contradictions you may have already read in Magnet, passing ’90s Indie Rock 101 is a prerequisite for this willfully muffled puppy. But singles “Son Of Three” and  “Huffer” call back to Last Splash’s mad dashes and “Off You” is the strongest hit of Deal’s vocal allure on record. After connecting with those entry points, Title TK is just a big pool of “room sound” and compressed clompers to wade around in.