Metro Pulse/Platters/Stephen Malkmus, Pat Metheny Trio, Le Tigre

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This Week: The Breeders' long-awaited return, Eminem's third time around.

The Breeders
Title TK (4 AD)

I don't remember when exactly in 1993 The Breeders released Last Splash, but in my mind it'll always be one of those timeless summer classics. The group's leader, Kim Deal, cut her teeth in the Pixies, perhaps the last great group of the college rock era (before college rock graduated to Alternative). The Breeders started out as just a side project, but when the Pixies dissolved, Kim and her sister Kelley poured their hearts into Last Splash, and created a pop gem. The songs—particularly the hit, "Cannonball," along with "No Aloha," "Divine Hammer," and "Drivin' on 9"—were so quirky, infectious and easy going, that they begged to played in your car on a hot summer afternoon.

The group should have been poised to capitalize on the Alternative genre they helped create. But Kelley Deal's drug problems kept the band from ever recording a follow up. Nine years later, the Deals finally put their personal struggles at bay long enough to record that follow up. While the resulting record, Title TK , is not the breath of fresh air that Last Splash was, the group has nevertheless maintained its sense of playfulness.

Off the bat, the Deals play with their own struggles, "Ah I will sing/ Title TK/ If I don't black out."

The Breeders' music mixes the Deals' charming off-kilter vocals over buzzing guitars and songs that change tempo, stopping and starting, without ever losing the melody. That the lyrics are largely nonsensical only adds to the charm. Although their voices sound more worn this time around, that formula remains, and it still works well.

Nothing stands out quite the way "Cannonball" did, but there are some great singles waiting for airplay, especially "Full On Idle," and "Huffer," with its wonderfully mindless chorus of das, tas, nas and ahs. Perhaps you'll hear them driving around this summer.

—Joe Tarr

Eminem
The Eminem Show (Aftermath)

OK, how weird is this? The number one album in the United States of America at this very moment begins with a song called "White America" in which the protagonist—a white boy named Eminem, a.k.a. Slim Shady, né Marshall Mathers—muses about the role racism has played in his success ("Look at these eyes, baby blue, baby just like yourself.../Look at the sales/Let's do the math, if I was black, I would've sold half"), pledges his allegiance to the First Amendment ("The women and men who have broke their necks for the freedom of speech the United States government has sworn to uphold/ Or so we are told") and threatens to lead an army of disaffected youth on Washington ("The ringleader of this circus of worthless pawns/ Sent to lead the march right up to the steps of Congress/ And piss on the lawns of the White House...To spit liquor in the face of this democracy of hypocrisy").

Later, he declares himself "no friend of Bush," and says he's here "with a plan to ambush this Bush administration, mush the Senate's face in and push this generation/ of kids to stand and fight for the right to say something you might not like." He worries about those kids a lot, apparently, warning them "...All this terror, America demands action, next thing you know you've got Uncle Sam's ass askin'/ to join the Army or what you'll do for their Navy/ You just a baby, gettin' recruited at eighteen."

Of course, most of the album is taken up with what is by now standard fare for Eminem: his grievances against his mother, his ex-wife, and the media; his love for his young daughter Hailie, who appears on one track giggling, "I think my dad's gone crazy"; and his, uh, complicated attitudes toward women and gays (he still says "faggot," but he also jokes about having sex with his producer/mentor Dr. Dre and brags about his duet with Elton John at the Grammys; and in the lead-off single, "Without Me," he boasts, "I'm back, I'm on the rag and I'm ovulating"—not exactly standard macho rap bluster).

All of which is to say that, three albums in, Eminem is still a very confused and confusing guy. The beats don't bounce quite as well this time (maybe because Dre only produced two tracks), and as before, there's plenty of filler. But the speed-talking kid with the high-decibel whine still rhymes so energetically, and spikes his rants with so much wacko comic invention, that often the only possible response is to shake your head and move your ass. And his sheer willingness to piss off anyone (he makes fun of Dick Cheney's heart condition, fer cryin' out loud) almost counts as a political act here in John Ashcroft's America.

The voice of a generation? I dunno. But someone's sure as hell buying it.

—Jesse Fox Mayshark