Opened

Album: Pod (1990)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Opened" is the ninth track on Pod, The Breeders' debut album, released on May 29, 1990 by 4AD Records. Kim Deal wrote it, sang it, and laced it with all the eerie, off-kilter charm that made the album a cult classic.
  • The song is minimal, raw, and unsettling - basically, early Breeders in a nutshell. The lyrics sketch out a vaguely terrifying scene featuring a woman with Barbie doll hair in a dingy basement, which somehow sums up the whole Pod vibe: claustrophobic, shadowy, and laced with something darkly sexual.
  • Pod was recorded in January 1990 at the Palladium studio in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Breeders brought in Steve Albini, who at that point had already built a rep for recording Pixies' 1988 album Surfer Rosa. Albini, ever allergic to the title of "producer," insisted he was just the engineer, but his hands-off, no-frills style helped turn Pod into something rough, but also intimate.
  • Before The Breeders rendezvoused with Steve Albini in Scotland, they stayed at bassist Josephine Wiggs' sprawling family home in Biggleswade to write. One morning, drummer Britt Walford awoke with a vivid dream.

    "That song is basically me repeating his dream," Kim Deal told Mojo magazine. "That was the best way to do things, where you get those natural creative vibes."
  • Pod didn't crack the mainstream like 1993's Last Splash, but it did reach #22 on the UK Albums Chart and has since gained reverent status among musicians and critics for its unique sound and atmosphere.

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