Pretenders: Classic or Dud?

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.)

this is the coolest thing on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LO265eITJ0

her flatness works because it's hipster flat, downtown flat, by way of lou reed/patti smith/etc. she's too cool to hit those notes. ric ocasek pulled the same trick, obviously. really a lot of american new-wave singing drew on that kind of self-conscious remove. the good ones (and i definitely count chrissie as a good one) made it work by always letting you hear the vulnerability under the pose.

that "Brass in Pocket" vid is great ... love Chrissie taking a drag of her cig midway through

how effin awesome is this tho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeTsSD18BBc

I will never not be a fan.

Break Up the Concrete was pretty good, if anyone but me cares anymore. Search: the title song ("Cuban Slide" beat plus her best bit of vocal nonsense since "Brrrrr, nyyowww!") and "Boots of Chinese Plastic":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDZrzd4yA-8

Joining the lovefest. Dig the rhythm section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7TyAjje0Y

the first album is brilliant... criminally underrated. RIP JHS

It's in my top ten; it's the rest of their catalog through 1999 that's criminally underrated.

given how the first album has been treated in '80s album polls on ilx (and elsewhere), i'm considering the U-word increasingly justifiable

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yes! Packed is the only one from the Pretenders-->Viva el Amor run that has never clicked with me after two decades of fandom.

Curious about turnout now, abysmal then:

Best Pretenders Album

Damn, I would've thrown Get Close a vote. Feels like the time is right for someone to cover "Don't Get Me Wrong".

I mean, some country artist should do it.

Packed! has one of my favorite Hynde tracks, though...a co-write with Johnny Marr called "When Will I See You".

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don't give Sugarland any ideas.

I went with Singles as well (although I wish it would've come out one album later so that "When Will I See You?" could've been included.

― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:19 PM (5 years ago)

I'm as timeless as the sun, moon and stars.

Packed also boasts "Let's Make a Pact" and "Sense of Purpose," the latter of which got a lot of airplay down here when she covered it for Isle of View.

I really wish I could have seen what happened with the Pretenders had Honeyman-Scott and Farndon not died - they are a 'classic line up' sort of band, and it's not fair really but I do think of Pretenders after about 1982 as the Chrissie Hynde show (selling Chambers short as well I know)

They do have great songs throughout those years though

"Sense of Purpose" def my fav Packed song, but that might have a lot to do with my falling for the Isle of View version before I had ever even heard that album.

First three albums are all classic. Back on the Chain Gang, Kid, English Roses, Lovers of Today, I go to Sleep, Jealous Dogs and Mystery Achievement are just incredible songs. I haven't ever heard Packed, might give it a go.

Other than Packed, I'd argue that the 90s Pretenders were quite underrated. Last of the Independents and Viva el Amor are both solid, and Isle of View is the very rare live album that I'd count as being almost every bit as essential as a band's studio records.

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