152. The Pretenders, "Pretenders"

 


Just an absolute blast of an album.  This mashup of new wave and punk and sheer attitude was released in 1979 and debuted at number 1 on the UK albums chart, due largely to the Pretenders' cover of the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing," which had already been released and gone to number 1 in the UK.  

This quintessentially British band was fronted by American Chrissy Hynde, and has there ever been a frontwoman with more swagger (except possibly Debbie Harry)?  She wrote almost all the songs and delivers them with so much confidence and attitude that you would swear she'd been doing it for years.  A song like "Precious," the album opener, is so fully formed and well-thought-out as a song that it's hard to believe it's on a band's debut.  It also sets the table perfectly for the rest of the album, landing somewhere between punk, new wave, and pop, an absolutely magnetic blend that Hynde more or less invented.  It also has the provocative lyrics that are a hallmark of this record:

We were bound, bound, bound, bound to shore way
We want to do it, do it, do it, do it on the pavement
Maybe, maybe I'm going to have a baby
We want to do it, do it all night
I was feeling kind of ethereal
'Cause I'm precious
I have my eye on your imperial
You're so precious

"Tattooed Love Boys" is maybe the apotheosis of this, a driving rhythm and absolutely catchy melody with lyrics that are beyond just suggestive:

I was a good time
Yeah, I got pretty good
At changing tires
Upstairs, bro
I shot my mouth off and you showed me what that hole was for

Hynde has since explained that the song is about her sexual assault by members of a biker gang.  She's made some fairly controversial comments about rape that a lot of people have interpreted as victim-blaming; she does not seem like the kind of person who apologizes for things she says.

And then there's "Brass in Pocket," probably the best-known Pretenders song that Hynde, predictably enough, can't stand any more.  Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott (who would, unfortunately, die of a cocaine overdose a couple of years after this album was released) came up with the familiar riff, and Hynde wrote the lyrics and vocal melody.  It's probably one of the most mellow songs on the album, but it fits in perfeclt somehow.  I keep coming back to the absolutely unique sound that Hynde and the band developed.  It's instantly familiar and unlike anything else.  This album is an absolute 10.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Not even a shadow of a doubt.

Comments

  1. GGMay 24, 2022 at 10:01 AM

    Oh man, the Pretenders were another one of those bands that I was born just a little too late for (I was 5 when this album was released), and the first album of theirs that I owned was a "best of" collection. But I never knew that (1) they were mostly British (!), (2) "Stop Your Sobbing" was a Kinks cover, or (3) "Tattooed Love Boys," which is far and away my favorite Pretenders song (well, maybe tied with "My City Was Gone") had that troubling backstory. Learning lots of things today!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TKMay 25, 2022 at 8:26 AM

      Did you know Chrissy Hynde had a kid with Ray Davies? Really the ultimate cover imo.

      Delete
    2. GGJune 2, 2022 at 5:08 PM

      No! and lol

      Delete

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