Pretenders: Classic or Dud?

"Whatabout Siouxsie? The Plasmatics?"

The Pretenders were about before The Plasmatics, weren't they?

In any case, what about Big Brother & The Holding Company (Janis Joplin), Jefferson Airplane (Grace Slick)...?

Pretenders? First album was classic, most of the singles were pretty good and (on the handful of occasions I saw them at least) they were always pretty good live.

'Private Life', 'Millionaires', 'Downtown (Akron)'. 'Criminal' is a good song. I like the tremolo on 'Never Do That'.

There is one song that's a lot like the Banshees! It's on the 45s compilation.

Great line: '2000 miles / ... it's very far!'

love the pretenders, scott's description upthread of the first album as 'exhiliarating' applies to much of their stuff for me.

"Now I see you/All impressed and half undressed/ You got paint stick/ All over the scars and lumps and bumps/ Tattooed love boys/ Have got you where I used to lay/ Well ha ha, too bad/ But you know what they say/ Stop snivelin', you're gonna make some plastic surgeon a rich man/ Oh, but the prestige and the glory/ Another human interest story/ You are that."

Two total classics.

I always thought it was "The beggars just come with the scenery.." ya know, 3rd world .. beggars... I guess I gotta look it up now.

I still like The Pretenders (who played the first and ONLY stadium-sized concert I've ever attended, Detroit's Joe Louis Arena '87, and Chrissie was totally outgoing and charismatic and made an "I'm-not-worthy" wisecrack about sharing the stage with Iggy Pop, who was the opening act, and the main reason I attended) and I still like "Middle Of The Road", but now it leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste, so tell me: Am I misunderstanding or overreacting? And why should it only now bother me 20 years after the fact?

Comments?

are any of their post get close albums worth the time beyond the singles? I remember not liking Packed that much when it came out, and then I don't think I bought anything else. I did get hooked on the VH1Classics Pretenders marathon hour a few weekends ago.

Ray Davies and Chrissie Hynde are a power-mullet couple if I've ever seen one.

I never thought of that lyric as complaining about a fan. I guess you could take it that way if you look at it as a specific piece of autobiography, but "I can't get from the car to the curb without some little jerk on my back" seems a pretty universal sentiment somewhat hyperbolically stated.

i made another pretenders thread somewhere, i like them (her?) a whole lot.

indeed!

scott seward, I love you.

saw them opening for the Who about a year and a half ago. their set was full of surprises: they opened with "the wait" and closed with "precious"; the shitty songs ("i'll stand by you") somehow worked; and hynde's voice has not changed one iota since 1980. so many bands have to play songs in different keys to accommodate the singer's time-ravaged voice. the pretenders had to make no such adjustments.

Love the first record.

packed! is quite a good little album, readily available at any used CD store.

They remind me of The Police, in that they were a bunch of lags who'd been around the fringes of the British music scene forever, and then were roped together to back up a hit-sniffing singer/songwriter on a major label.

Which is not to say they weren't an excellent band, as they obviously were - at least for the first LP.

They were very good to excellent on a couple of other albums too.

did nick lowe produce "kid"? it uses the same latin-by-way-of-brill-building syncopation as his "cruel to be kind"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyKp0iia6MM

not an altogether terrible video. young chrissie hynde looks like parker posey here.

'kid' is a chris thomas production

aha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko5czpuRnQw

for some reason i cannot begin to explain, watching this video makes me nostalgic for a time when the record industry was making shitloads of money off songs like this

i like the way hynde uses her limited voice. she unapologetically goes flat all over the place, but anticipates and modulates it to sound desirable and cool.

"Kid" = one of my favorite guitar solos of all timez.

for some reason i cannot begin to explain, watching this video makes me nostalgic for a time when the record industry was making shitloads of money off songs like this

yeah - I think there's a real nice mix of chaos & incredible optimism in the now-hilarious concept of guys with enough money and power to make some happen putting the Pretenders on their high-priority list -altho the song itself is aiming squarely at the "nostalgia" button from note one, aggressively, so there's that, too.

Simpler times.

I'm finding it difficult to accept the notion that Hynde has a limited voice.

Alfred she sings flat about half the time. It's a charming flat, but it's flat.

total classic, the first album is awesome

I didn't like them at the time (but I never hate them), for music-as-identity reasons (they were too mainstream for me), but now I think some of these songs are great. I still find the songs a bit depressing, like a lot of popular music from the time, for reminding me of the idealized high school years I definitely did not experience. (Never be born to a Christian clergyman.)

You listed the correct post-80s record.

I'm finding it difficult to accept the notion that Hynde has a limited voice.

― lihaperäpukamat (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, October 24, 2009 8:09 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Alfred she sings flat about half the time. It's a charming flat, but it's flat.

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Saturday, October 24, 2009 8:26 AM (nine years ago)

lol someone added this to her wikipedia page:

Artistry
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2015)
Hynde has a contralto vocal range.[ 50 ] Until 1978, shortly before the advent of The Pretenders, Hynde had little idea what she sounded like.[ 51 ] Attributing her distinctive time signatures to an inability to count, and her distinctive amusia to an inability to hear, she eschews formal voice training saying that, "distinctive voices in rock are trained through years of many things: frustration, fear, loneliness, anger, insecurity, arrogance, narcissism, or just sheer perseverance – anything but a teacher."[ 51 ]

did Hynde and Petty ever cross paths? Was thinking about how they are kinda similar, both part of the last wave of "classic rock", shading into new wave. shag haircuts, idiosyncratic voices, classicists but also p odd.

In which our hero, Chrissie Hynde, kisses Trump's ass in order to encourage him to ... help Julian Assange.

ew! no! what are you talking about?

An open Letter to @realDonaldTrump, President of the United States.

Dear Mr. President,

I often think of how much my father, Melville “Bud” Hynde, who proudly served his country as a Marine on Guadalcanal, would have enjoyed your Presidency. [p1.]

— Chrissie Hynde (@ChrissieHynde) February 17, 2020

Melville "Bud" Hynde would probably have voted for Trump, listened to Rush, bopped to "My City is Gone."

ugh

first pj harvey now CH

assange sucks

what did PJ do?!?! my god
what is happening

Assange is a cause celebre. Kissing Trump's ass is a different thing (even if Hynde is clever for recognizing how President Mike Teavee works.)

You may be right.

more like kissy hind amirite

Oh in 2017 PJ participated in pro Assange event

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/04/patti-smith-pj-harvey-brian-eno-participated-in-free-julian-assange-conference/

eh that's stupid but whatever
kissing trump's ass in any way is the offense

lol kissy hinde

Has plenty of potential for this thread: Band names that are parodies of other bands' names.

But certainly not for this one: Worst band/musician with a name that is pun based on other bands/musicians

Kiss B. Hynde

Still haven't gotten around to the new album yet, but this, from her ongoing "Dylan Lockdown Series", is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBUhaj76B_U

It didn't need the last shot, but I found that video unexpectedly moving. Beautiful cover too.

Anyone else heard the Dylan covers album that Chrissie put out today? Kudos to her for selecting some less obvious song choices, I guess, but I don't know if she always went with his strongest material (two songs each from Shot of Love and Infidels!). At the very least, I am grateful to finally have a version of that "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" cover that I liked so much from last year on record.

yeah wow that seems like a natural for her to cover!

I would have loved to hear her salvage "Caribbean Wind." The one on Biograph sucks but on the old bootlegged outtake (which wasn't included on Trouble No More), it sounded like Dylan's phrasing could have been inspired by Chrissie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audUHTtPi1I

The awkward arrangement needs to be re-done, but I could see the original Pretenders fixing this and making something great out of it.

Greil loves the "Blind Willie McTell" cover (and really hates Dylan's Infidels FWIW).

Anyone read/have anything to say about this?: https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/adam-sobsey-chrissie-hynde

Excerpt from a recorded 1981 phone interview with James Honeyman-Scott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-blEXEO4qSY

played the 7th street entry (capacity 250) in mpls last night and apparently everyone was blown away