10 Greatest Forgotten Songs Of The 2000s
9. The Breeders - Bang On
Pixies’ mid-’00s reunion was a brief but beautiful thing. The beloved Boston band hit the road again and brought a great show to legacy fans and those who never got to experience the group in their heyday. New music, though, was a sticking point, as bassist Kim Deal just wasn’t too interested.
No matter, Deal's group The Breeders had been putting out fantastic work for years, and continued to do so as Pixies clogged on with subpar replacements and forgettable albums. The Breeders’ 2008 record Mountain Battles feels almost a response to the lust for more Pixies, moving further from the signature melodic grunge of Deal’s former band.
Bang On is one of the best and strangest songs in their oeuvre, a minimalist, start-stop production with vocals that whip in and out of focus. Compared with the direct attack of the band’s early years, it’s a peculiar but undeniable earworm, the affected singing particularly burrowing deep into your brain.
While the perfectly pitched pop of Last Splash-era Breeders will always be a crowd pleaser, it’s tracks like Bang On, compared with late Pixies, that illustrate best just how much Kim Deal brought to the equation.