Pretenders: Classic or Dud?

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.)

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

xpost

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".

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