Artist · chart history · #252 in alternative artist polls
The Breeders
Band Boston United States Formed 1989
The Breeders formed in 1989 in Boston, United States. The Breeders has 129 chart appearances on 89 radio countdowns from 33 stations on RockLists, spanning 1993–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Cannonball”, which appears on 78 lists and was voted number one once. In total the artist has topped 1 countdown. The station that charted The Breeders most often is CD101 (Columbus, OH), with 36 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1993.
The Breeders started as a side project, and ended up sounding like the most fun you could have with a busted amp. Kim Deal of the Pixies and Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses put the band together in Boston in the late '80s, and for their 1990 debut, Pod, they brought in Josephine Wiggs of the Perfect Disaster on bass and Britt Walford of Slint on drums. It was a spooky, sparse, off-kilter record that sold little at first but won them a devoted indie following, and Kurt Cobain counted Pod among his favorite albums ever.
In 1992 Kim's twin sister Kelley joined as a third guitarist for the Safari EP, even though she had never played guitar before. Donelly soon left to concentrate on her new band, Belly, Walford went too, and Kelley became the band's lead guitarist. When the Pixies broke up in 1993, Kim made the Breeders her full-time job and brought in drummer Jim Macpherson, from the Dayton band the Raging Mantras, to complete the lineup most fans treasure.
Last Splash came out that same year, right in the middle of the alternative rock gold rush, and it went platinum. "Cannonball" is the reason: a squalling, hiccuping bass line, a distorted yelp of a vocal, and a groove that stops and starts like a car with a bad clutch before exploding into pure joy. "Divine Hammer" and "Saints" showed the Deals could write sunny, wobbly pop songs as easily as they made noise.
It didn't last. Drink and drugs pushed the band into hiatus in 1994, and both sisters did time in rehab over the next few years; Kim cut one album, Pacer, with the Amps in 1995. The Deals brought back the Breeders with a new crew for Title TK in 2002 and Mountain Battles in 2008. In 2013 Wiggs and Macpherson rejoined them to tour the 20th anniversary of Last Splash, and the classic four finally made another full album together, All Nerve, in 2018, with "Wait in the Car" and "Nervous Mary" snapping back to life.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by The Breeders on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cannonball#408 of all time | 78 | #1 | 1 | 1993 | |
| 2 | Divine Hammer | 23 | #81 | – | 1994 | |
| 3 | Saints | 13 | #63 | – | 1994 | |
| 4 | Happiness Is A Warm Gun | 1 | #191 | – | – | |
| 5 | Huffer | 1 | #25 | – | 2002 | |
| 6 | New Year | 1 | #263 | – | – | |
| 7 | Son of Three | 1 | #85 | – | 2002 | |
| 8 | Glorious | 1 | #407 | – | – | |
| 9 | Wait in the Car | 2 | #52 | – | 2018 | |
| 10 | All Nerve | 1 | #72 | – | 2019 | |
| 11 | Do You Love Me Now | 1 | #731 | – | – | |
| 12 | No Aloha | 1 | #770 | – | – | |
| 13 | Archangel's Thunderbird | 1 | #77 | – | 2019 | |
| 14 | Nervous Mary | 1 | #650 | – | – | |
| 15 | Safari | 1 | #801 | – | – | |
| 16 | I Just Wanna Get Along | 1 | #1977 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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