Chrissie Hynde 5: Duets Special

Between her Dylan tribute album and the Valve Bone Woe experiment, Chrissie Hynde has shown her love of songs from all over the popular music map. On the lowkey Duets Special, she tackles a baker’s dozen tunes with all sort of “pals” (her term) selected from various genres.

Most of the album is subdued and acoustic, though she and Cat Power bring in the fuzz for Morrissey’s “First Of The Gang To Die”, and there’s subtle electricity for “Every Little Bit Hurts” with Carleen Anderson. She does two songs associated with Elvis Presley (one a virtual duet with the late Mark Lanegan) and the slowcore band Low is also touched on twice, first with Debbie Harry (who sounds like an older Marianne Faithfull here) on their “Try To Sleep”, and then with the band’s Alan Sparhawk on Cass McCombs’ “County Line”. Beyond those, the choices aren’t too obscure, though k.d. lang does lead a gender-bent but faithful (odd word, we know) take on “Me And Mrs. Jones”. Lucinda Williams snarls her way through a mostly unplugged “Sway” via the Rolling Stones, but the most eye-raising collaboration would be with Julian Lennon on his father’s “It’s Only Love”.

Duets Special is nice, and if you like her, you might like this. Or you might not. We found it a pleasant side trip.

Chrissie Hynde & Pals Duets Special (2025)—3

Pretenders 15: Relentless

The latest version of Chrissie Hynde’s Pretenders does have something in common with the most recent albums under that name—namely, main foil James Walbourne, who plays lots of guitar, some of the bass, and several keyboards. Relentless was written entirely by the pair, and has proved to be divisive throughout all the reviews we’ve read, from glowing to disgusted. (And Martin Chambers is nowhere to be heard.)

The first three tracks deliver on the album title. “Losing My Sense Of Taste” does sport some shimmering guitar tones that recall James Honeyman-Scott, but is otherwise a piledriver. “A Love” finds another retro tone but stays in the same tempo and mood, then “Domestic Silence” is a trudge with Hammond organ and surprising harmonies. The lost love tale of “The Copa” finally provides a quieter respite, somewhere between Tex-Mex, surf music, and ‘60s chanteuse, and the melancholy continues on “The Promise Of Love”, driven by piano with a prominent organ. She’s still brooding on “Merry Widow”, which sports a guitar part and mood change right out of Robert Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters.

“Let The Sun Come In” is a good distillation of “Up The Neck” with a cool riff to boot for the verses, and a chorus that goes somewhere else entirely. “Look Away” is another lowkey beatnik tune with thudding drums, which go on beating slowly for “Your House Is On Fire”, which actually rhymes “see ya” with “wouldn’t want to be ya” in its chorus. “Just Let It Go” is the album’s epic but one, with a keening chorus, weeping guitars, and buzzsaw electric solos. There’s a cool chordy riff for most of “Vainglorious”, but there’s also an annoying seagull effect that undermines the entire track. Compare that effect to the looped-sounding strings on “I Think About You Daily”, a collaboration with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood that sounds like nothing else on the album.

As we’ve tried to convey, Relentless is all over the place musically. There are good songs in here, and she’s still in incredible voice. It just makes it above the Mendoza line.

To support the album, Chrissie and Walbourne brought his brother on drums and another guy on bass on a theater tour in 2024, which was commemorated a year later on the self-released double live Kick ‘Em Where It Hurts! It delivers nice and loud renditions of some of the recent tunes, which shine in this context, along with a handful from the first three albums way back when. The slow ones aren’t as loud, but are still welcome.

Pretenders Relentless (2023)—3
Pretenders Kick ‘Em Where It Hurts! (2025)—3½

Chrissie Hynde 4: Standing In The Doorway

In addition to countless and sometimes notable covers, Bob Dylan tribute albums have been a thing since the ‘60s, but the Covid lockdown inspired many to re-associate themselves with the man’s music. Chrissie Hynde has unabashedly worn her Dylan devotion on her sleeve throughout her career, even adding “Forever Young” to one album, but Standing In The Doorway is a true labor of love. To her credit, she’s chosen nine songs more beloved to fans than jukeboxes, with half of the songs coming from the ‘80s. The album was recorded via text; she’d do a take, then send it to current Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne to add other instruments. Somewhere along the way veteran engineer Tchad Blake added further touches, mixed the batch, and took photos for the album package.

It all sounds very homemade, as befits modern file transmission, from the pre- and post-chatter around “In The Summertime” and “You’re A Big Girl Now” to the birdsong heard here and there. The title track has modified chords from the original, but they suit her delivery; her lyrical adjustments aren’t as successful on “Sweetheart Like You”. Despite its minimalist structure, “Blind Willie McTell” develops into an impressive production. “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” gets accordions and mandolin-like touches yet remains a happy strum, but “Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight” is the highlight, though that could be because we heard the opening chords and feared a take on “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”. “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” is played straight, while “Every Grain Of Sand” is elegant and understated.

Standing In The Doorway isn’t the most innovative Dylan tribute, and her vocal approach often mimics his, sometimes sounding more parody than homage. But at 70, Chrissie Hynde remains an excellent interpreter of anyone’s songs, and not just her own.

Chrissie Hynde Standing In The Doorway: Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob Dylan (2021)—3

Pretenders 14: Hate For Sale

Not that Chrissie Hynde worked at a frantic pace, but Hate For Sale is the first Pretenders album in a while that earns the use of the band name. For one, Martin Chambers is back on drums, and the other two guys had already appeared on a previous album. Plus, the producer is Stephen Street, who helmed the desk for the band’s ‘90s albums. Also, it rocks. Mostly.

Chrissie wrote all the songs with guitarist James Walbourne, and they’re all pretty solid. The title track is a furious opener, complete with false start, while “The Buzz” sports an intro very much like “Kid”. “Lightning Man” evokes the reggae of “Private Life”, with a melodica right out of Twin/Tone. We don’t know what “Turf Accountant Daddy” is supposed to be about, but at least she finds “Cincinnati” to be a better rhyme than “Reno, Nevada”. (We also like the nod to Blondie in the brief synth solo.) “You Can’t Hurt A Fool” gives her a chance to be soulful.

“I Don’t Know When To Stop” takes us back to the loud bash at the beginning, then “Maybe Love Is In NYC” subverts the familiar “All Along The Watchtower” chords by arpeggiating the electric and strumming a prominent acoustic, and finding a catchy melody for the chorus. The trashy “Junkie Walk” is followed by Bo Diddley filtered through “Didn’t Want To Be This Lonely”. She waits until the very end to flip the script, with the overly emotional “Crying In Public”, accompanied by piano and her go-to Duke String Quartet.

At just over thirty minutes, Hate For Sale is short and to the point. It’s also the first Pretenders album in a long time worthy of playing on a loop. Not bad for a few veterans pushing 70.

Pretenders Hate For Sale (2020)—3½

Chrissie Hynde 3: Valve Bone Woe

If anyone’s read this far, they know the high esteem in which we hold Chrissie Hynde as a singer. In addition to her own songs, she’s proven a deft interpreter of others’ music since the first Pretenders album. Her first all-covers album has the design of a classic jazz vocal album, but while some of the selections on Valve Bone Woe fall into that category, she’s also brave enough to add songs outside the Great American Songbook.

Nancy Wilson’s “How Glad I Am” is taken fairly straight, until the slightly discordant fade, which sets up the trip-hoppy effects that derail the Beach Boys’ “Caroline, No”, otherwise taken in a torch style. “I’m A Fool To Want You” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well” are more reverent treatments, and she seems to only wail along with the trumpet on “Meditation On A Pair Of Wire Cutters” by Charles Mingus. One might expect her to tackle an Astrud Gilberto vocal, but instead she goes for the earlier Jobim composition “Once I Loved”. Meanwhile, her “Wild Is The Wind” follows closer to David Bowie’s version than that of Nina Simone or Johnny Mathis. (She does the bridge just once, preferring an extended ending that will make you nostalgic for Portishead.)

Trip-hop effects also color “You Don’t Know What Love Is”, and while we’re intrigued anytime someone covers Nick Drake, Bred Mehldau set the bar for “River Man”. Still, the ending nicely segues to “Absent Minded Me”, which she heard from either Julie London or Barbra Streisand, although this is also taken over by factory sounds by the close. We can’t hear her anywhere on Coltrane’s “Naima”, which also gets the effects treatment, but luckily “Hello, Young Lovers” isn’t too ornate. She tackles an obscure Kinks song for the first time in decades, but the already bossa nova “No Return” could have stayed out of the rainforest, especially when the traffic jam runs through it. “Que Reste-t-il De Nos Amours?” shows she can still slay us in French, but we did not need a minute of sampled dialogue from a French film. Maybe we’d feel different had we learned the language.

As should be clear, Valve Bone Woe is best when it’s not so busy. Even her voice can’t compete with all the treatments; co-producer Marius de Vries is likely to blame for those. That said, she still knows how to pick ‘em.

Chrissie Hynde With The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble Valve Bone Woe (2019)—3

Pretenders 13: Alone

Once again “Pretenders” was presented as an overall brand name rather than a band of consistent members that fans had been following for over three decades. On Alone, Chrissie Hynde is joined by fellow Akronian Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who produced and brought along a couple of guys from his side project The Arcs. Therefore, the sound is those distorted retro R&B overtones made popular by the likes of Amy Winehouse and, yes, the Black Keys. And no, Martin Chambers isn’t on the album.

Chrissie is a compelling vocalist and top-notch songwriter whatever her outlet. Were we in charge of marketing, we’d’ve promoted this as a Chrissie & Dan album, as her name would pull in Pretenders diehards, and his would yank in the younger generations. But we’re not, but we still feel compelled to insist that this is not a Pretenders album, nor should it be mistaken for one, despite the advertising. (A later pressing coupled the album with a bonus disc recorded live the following year with the previous version of the Pretenders including, yes, Martin Chambers on drums.)

The title track mixes Lou Reed swagger with a more tuneful chorus, but doesn’t really convince. “Roadie Man” and “Let’s Get Lost” are pointed throwbacks to a pre-punk era, but “Gotta Wait” brings in the stomp. “Never Be Together” is co-written by the guy she worked with on her Stockholm album, plus it’s got Duane Eddy sitting in on guitar. “Chord Lord” turns the sequence of “Lay Lady Lay” inside out nicely, so that’s good.

Acoustic and lowkey, “Blue Eyed Sky” is a welcome change of pace at the halfway point, but while “The Man You Are” also begins acoustic, it’s soon swallowed up by clattery production. The spaghetti western vibe on “One More Day” is too cheesy to work, and the overly whiny “I Hate Myself” isn’t going to win her any sympathy. “Death Is Not Enough” comes from obscure musician Marek Rymaszewski, so she’s still got a head for a hook when she hears one. Finally, “Holy Commotion” would be a much better song if it hadn’t been built around what sounds like a synthesizer preset.

We’d like to say Alone is good for what it is, except that it is NOT a Pretenders album. We will not begrudge Chrissie any desire to experiment, since she’s still one of the baddest rockers out there, and we like our teeth just the way they are.

Pretenders Alone (2016)—2

Chrissie Hynde 2: Stockholm

One has to hand it to a veteran like Chrissie Hynde, determined to make music no matter who was listening, with whoever she happened to find compatibility. Named for the city where it was recorded, Stockholm was her first full-length album released under her own name, rather than a conglomeration dubbed the Pretenders.

And that’s a good thing, since outside of her iconic voice, this is the least Pretenders-sounding album since Get Close. Like that album, the focus this time is on pop, but in more of the ‘60s retro-soul slash Bacharach mode as revived lately by the likes of Mark Ronson. Most of that can be laid on producer Bjorn Yttling, supposedly a wunderkind of Swedish pop. The sound isn’t so much striking as it is repetitive. Every now and then there’s a departure, such as Neil Young’s trademark contribution to “Down The Wrong Way”; John McEnroe apparently offers the same for “A Plan Too Far”. “Tourniquet (Cynthia Ann)” takes an almost goth turn, while “You’re The One” has a hook that recalls Britney Spears’ “Toxic”.

So Stockholm is acceptable, but we suspect we’d prefer the straight rock approach to these lyrics. Seeing as they’re split between pining for someone or damning their insensitivity, we wonder whether anyone in particular inspired them. Her previous collaborator perhaps?

Chrissie Hynde Stockholm (2014)—3

Chrissie Hynde 1: Fidelity

While the Pretenders have been more of a conceptual band than a cohesive unit for the vast majority of their existence, it’s always surprising when Chrissie Hynde emerges with music under her own name than in the guise of the collective that propelled her to notoriety. While Fidelity! is credited to the unwieldy JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys, it’s easily as good a Pretenders album as anything released under that name.

That said, this outfit grew out of an unlikely collaboration with a Welsh folksinger half her age named John-Paul Jones, a.k.a. JP. Supposedly they both knew their animal attraction couldn’t sustain the generational difference, so they put at least a portion of that energy into songwriting. Their conundrum is laid out immediately in “Perfect Lover”, wherein she lists her detriments while he rasps his devotion notwithstanding.

The rest of the album provides further ruminations on romance and the futility thereof, and plenty of opportunities for us to get what she saw in him musically. His yowl dominates “If You Let Me”, an otherwise outstanding rocker. The symbol of the fairground looms large here, in two song titles as well as the band name, and we can’t figure out why. JP handles “Leave Me If You Must” all his own (if he hasn’t listened to Leonard Cohen yet, he probably should) but most of the tracks fall into the conversation trope, as in “Australia” and “Courage”. “Misty Valleys” is just Chrissie, and it’s lovely in its catchy melancholy, while “Meanwhile” presents a different balance, and “Never Drink Again” and the title track suggest she regrets the circumstances of their fabled first meeting.

This is all conjecture, but the listener gets an overwhelming feeling of voyeurism throughout Fidelity! Still, a crack band of unknowns anchors each track, although JP’s constant presence is an acquired taste, and very much why this shouldn’t be called a Pretenders album. Chrissie sounds as alluring as ever, and that’s what makes it all click. One would think it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but she’s yet to work with any of the players since.

JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys Fidelity! (2010)—3

Pretenders 12: Break Up The Concrete

In the wake of a Rhino reissue campaign, Chrissie Hynde convened yet another version of the Pretenders, none of whom had been in the band before, for a brand new album. This lineup included players from alt-country outfits like the Pernice Brothers and Son Volt, while the drumkit was handled by Jim Keltner, all on songs Chrissie wrote herself save one, a cover of “Rosalee” by Akron legend Robert Kidney.

One bonehead review of Break Up The Concrete called it Chrissie’s country album; rockabilly and yes, alt-country is more like it. It’s not trendy or clichéd, wouldn’t be mistaken for anything at the CMAs, and nowhere near as dire a departure as Loose Screw was. The overall sound is live and fresh, almost like first takes or even demos. Several even include count-ins and instructions, as if they’re learning the tunes while the tapes roll.

The rockabilly numbers speed past, with little chance to follow the lyrics, such as the title track, the equally frenetic “Don’t Cut Your Hair”, and particularly the religious references in “Boots Of Chinese Plastic”. The slower songs are rather diverse, like the tender portrait of “The Nothing Maker” followed by the R&B hybrid in “Don’t Lose Faith In Me”. “Love’s A Mystery” and “You Didn’t Have To” will appeal to fans of “Sense Of Purpose”, though “The Last Ride” is a little tepid. But “One Thing Never Changed” is nice and torchy, and the sinewy “Almost Perfect” really stands out.

With zero ad power on a tiny label, Break Up The Concrete came and went without much notice, even to the point that some foreign markets packaged the album with a best-of CD. It’s still one of the more interesting albums of her career, and a good argument that she shouldn’t hang up her guitar anytime soon.

Pretenders Break Up The Concrete (2008)—3

Pretenders 11: Pirate Radio

Once Rhino got a hold of the Pretenders catalog, a box set celebrating the band was certainly expected. Pirate Radio (helpfully subtitled “1979-2005”) presented four discs chronologically spanning Chrissie Hynde’s career to date, with the usual rarities added, along with a DVD of videos and TV appearances.

Needless to say, while it doesn’t include the entire debut album, the first disc is stellar. Beginning with a demo of “Precious”, it methodically works through all the singles that built that album, with big points for including “Cuban Slide” and “Porcelain” on CD in the U.S. for the first time. “What You Gonna Do About It” is a live cover of a Small Faces tune, and before we know it, two of the guys are dead and Chrissie’s onto the third album.

Things start to slide about halfway through the second disc, right about when we get to the Get Close debacle. Here at least we get to hear an early version of “Tequila”, and more complete than the snippet on Last Of The Independents. A handful of leftovers from Get Close are of varying interest, as is the cover of “Windows Of The World” from an obscure soundtrack and a carbon copy cover of the Beatles’ “Not A Second Time”.

The third disc continues with more songs from Packed! before serving up most of Last Of The Independents and finishing up with selections from the Isle Of View, nicely including “Creep”. Other rare covers include “Bold As Love” for a Hendrix tribute and “Angel Of The Morning” for a companion album to Friends. A demo of “Every Mother’s Son” is quite effective.

The final disc is easily the most forgettable, for while it does sample the inoffensive ¡Viva El Amor!, it also covers Loose Screw. However, if you wanted to hear Chrissie take on “The Needle And The Damage Done” and “Everyday Is Like Sunday”, and didn’t want to buy the G.I. Jane soundtrack for “The Homecoming”, you’re in luck.

Before too long Rhino would expand the early albums, and include several of the extras in all the right places. There’s more good than bad on Pirate Radio, but more than anything it underscores what she lost early on, and while we can admire her determination to keep going, the set is only of value to completists.

Pretenders Pirate Radio 1979-2005 (2006)—3½

Pretenders 10: Loose Screw

Reinvention is nothing new in the music business, and often celebrated. But listeners can get very confused when presented with a sound that’s not only very different from someone’s previous pile of albums. While Loose Screw was the first time Chrissie Hynde managed to keep the same Pretenders lineup for three consecutive albums, outside of her voice, the album sounds nothing like the band formed over two decades before. This time out the prevailing genre is reggae filtered through triphop, which may be fine for some, but if you’re looking for snarl, it ain’t here.

The opening “Lie To Me” does have a lot of bite, with no reggae touches, but it cuts out abruptly, almost mid-note, and then the sound takes over. From time to time a decent song rises from the mix, such as “You Know Who Your Friends Are” and “The Losing”, but for the most part she’s merely crooning her heartbreak. The two tunes written with Steinberg and Kelly don’t stand out in good or bad ways than the ones she wrote with her guitar player. Obscure covers still being her thing, this time she tackles “Walk Like A Panther” by a late-century British electronic outfit.

This is not an indictment of reggae as a genre; in fact, Hynde and Co. managed to tackle it pretty well in “Private Life” on the debut, and time to time since then. Loose Screw is an experiment that goes on too long, to the detriment of what might be some decent tunes. If anything, it’s like she completed the album, and let somebody completely remix and rerecord it, leaving only her voice as evidence. Sure enough, several songs were subjected to further dance remixes by the likes of Junior Vasquez, to somebody’s enjoyment, or so we’d hope.

Pretenders Loose Screw (2002)—2

Pretenders 9: Viva El Amor

After two decades and only six albums, the idea of the Pretenders in 1999 seemed silly. But the near-comeback via Last Of The Independents kept those involved willing to stick around for Chrissie Hynde’s next batch of songs, some of which were, again, written with Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly.

At first sample, ¡Viva El Amor! seems stuck between contemporary beats and anonymous backings, which happens when you pit producers like Stephen Hague and Stephen Street against each other. “Popstar” is a snotty insult of the latest wave of girl singers, with robotic drums and a late cameo by David Johansen. The highly catchy “Human” was better, and a cover of an obscure song from a few years before by Divinyls (whose singer Christine Amphlett was Chrissie Hynde’s only competition in the awesome bangs department). “From The Heart Down” threatens to waver to sappiness, but The Duke Quartet returns from their cameo on Isle Of View to add strings right around the guitar solo, making it quite affecting. “Nails In The Road” is the first great guitar song on the album, a hidden gem, but even though “Who’s Who” is the second song in a row to reference a “queue”, it’s a little on the wimpy side. “Dragway 42” is more of a production than a song, something of a Mideastern travelogue, but the Duke Quartet neatly adds nightmarish accents to Chrissie’s fine vocal.

“Baby’s Breath” is a snotty riposte to a lackluster lover, with some confusing meter jumps. “One More Time” sounds like another run-of-the-mill torch song, but again, her vocal range is astounding. “Legalise Me” is a good pounding rocker that gives guest star Jeff Beck (no slouch when it comes to bangs, either) a change to blow his pyrotechnics everywhere. Then the mysterious “Samurai” manages to slow down the proceedings somewhere between a memory and a hallucination. Her perfect Spanish rendition of a Cuban folk song is given the pre-encore spot, before the mildly dreamy ode to the “Biker” lifestyle, which features the Duke Quartet again.

While the lamentable Get Close was an embarrassing display of Chrissie going soft, the equally venom-free ¡Viva El Amor! is a fine serving of mature, vulnerable pop, for lack of a better term we can’t invent. Perhaps because we expected so little, it is indeed a pleasant surprise, and well worth spending time around.

Pretenders ¡Viva El Amor! (1999)—3

Pretenders 8: The Isle Of View

Having returned to the charts, Chrissie Hynde and her latest Pretenders lineup were in prime position to be tapped for an “unplugged” television show. They could have simply played the songs acoustically, but instead, the band chose to be joined throughout on most songs by a string quartet. They also set up in the round, playing to each other, while the audience looked on from a distance.

Both the TV show and subsequent album were given the punning title The Isle Of View, though the sequences aren’t identical, and the CD doesn’t include two of the better performances: the recent hit single “Night In My Veins” and her cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”. (As for the “title track”, it’s merely a brief lush instrumental by the quartet with seaside effects, stuck at the end of the disc.)

Those omissions aside, it’s a very entertaining listen, touching on every one of the albums in equal measure, and not always relying on the more familiar ones. “Sense Of Purpose” and “Criminal” are rescued from the obscurity of Packed!, just as “Chill Factor” is better served in this format than the faux-soul of Get Close. “Kid” is slowed down to a near-lullaby, while “The Phone Call” maintains its broken-leg menace. Damon Albarn, then riding high with Blur, is trotted out to play piano on “I Go To Sleep” (take that, Oasis).

The Isle Of View is a good way to spend an hour, and goes a long way to re-establishing Chrissie as both a superb vocalist as well as a songwriter of note. Even better, with her voice up front and the songs given space, it’s possible to finally understand the words to the songs. Some of them, anyway.

Pretenders The Isle Of View (1995)—3½

Pretenders 7: Last Of The Independents

Just as Britpop started to make straight rock popular again in the aftermath of grunge, Chrissie Hynde came across another guitarist up for the impossible task of filling James Honeyman-Scott’s shoes in another incarnation of the Pretenders. Martin Chambers seemingly returned to the fold as well, but a closer look at the credits on Last Of The Independents proves that it’s yet another collection of disparate recordings from different sessions with other rhythm sections (including another refugee from the Smiths). The only constant is Chrissie herself, whom we see right there on the cover.

The sound of the first single, the unabashedly debauched “Night In My Veins”, had pundits declaring it a comeback, but the big hit was the power ballad “I’ll Stand By You”, and it’s between those poles that the album lies. The result is not unpleasant, but hardly indispensible, especially when co-written with ‘80s hit machine Steinberg and Kelly.

The opening sequence of “Hollywood Perfume”, “Night In My Veins” and “Money Talk” is comforting, since the songs all rock, and even the slowdown of “977”, both musically and vocally an homage to John Lennon’s Plastic Ono balladry, is hardly a sentimental tale of a violent lovers’ spat. The hippie social commentary in “Revolution” (not the Lennon song) is where things start to slide to the wimpy, though “All My Dreams” does feature the new “official” lineup of the band and, unfortunately, a spoken monologue.

People who bought the album on the basis of “I’ll Stand By You” may have been jarred by what follows immediately. “I’m A Mother” is a feminist rant set to a danceable Manchester beat thrown off by her tuneless howl of the title and some riffing in a different key. Much more interesting and equally maddening is the snippet of “Tequila”, a country lament that predates the first album. After one lonesome verse it’s superseded by the opaque “Every Mother’s Son”. The rockabilly of “Rebel Rock Me”, complete with hiccupping vocal, recalls “Thumbelina”, possibly the least essential song from her last good album, then we get another by-numbers Steinberg/Kelly collaboration in the way of “Love Colours”. And for some reason she chooses to end the “comeback” with a tepid cover of Dylan’s “Forever Young” (yes, the slow version).

Last Of The Independents is not a bad album, but it’s not what we want from Chrissie. To which she’d likely retort with a string of obscenities, and she’d be right. We’re waffling over whether it should be docked half a point, so watch this space for changes.

Pretenders Last Of The Independents (1994)—3

Pretenders 6: Packed!

The cover has the classic band logo, but the close-up shot of Chrissie Hynde’s trademark bangs and eyeliner should be proof that Packed! is a Pretenders album in name only, despite the instrument setup shown on the back. The only other member present is drummer Blair Cunningham, who joined up at the end of the last album; most of the tracks pick from a pile of players, including Rockpile’s Billy Bremner and producer Mitchell Froom, whose usual noisy production style takes a backseat here.

The focus is back on straight rock, thankfully, with a little pop influence for the more romantic tracks. “Never Do That” is a nice jangly tune with catchy verse and chorus, except that it’s basically a straight rewrite of “Back On The Chain Gang”. The pleading “Let’s Make A Pact” keeps her vulnerability upfront, continuing from the softer side shown on the last album. Her hackles raise a little on the galloping “Millionaires”, proof that she shouldn’t yodel, and “May This Be Love” is another unnecessary cover of a more obscure Hendrix tune. “No Guarantee” provides some welcome kick, but all goes quiet again on “When Will I See You”, co-written with Johnny Marr, which only adds insult to the injury that he didn’t stick around to collaborate on the whole album.

“Sense Of Purpose” would be a hit single in a just world, just as the same world would have mixed out her over-excited interjections in the third verse and at the end. “Downtown (Akron)” gallops along with little to say, and the cod-reggae of “How Do I Miss You” comes too close to the Marr collaboration three tracks early. “Hold A Candle To This” revives some of the snottiness of the early albums, but “Criminal” goes back to being sensitive and wistful.

Even despite the cover design, Packed! more accurately described how full the boxes of returns were. The album was ignored upon release, despite its scattered qualities, though a couple of the songs would remain in her repertoire down the road. It’s recommended for being better than Get Close, but still lacks any real memorable hit.

Pretenders Packed! (1990)—3

Pretenders 5: The Singles

Chrissie Hynde was a student of pop music first and foremost, and in the decade in which she finally made her mark on the music business, singles were still important in the UK, and had made something of a resurgence in the US. So even after the debacle that was Get Close, the brand still had legs, so a hits album made sense.

The Singles offers just that, a chronological ride through the band’s most recognizable songs, starting with “Stop Your Sobbing” before the first album, moving through the run-up to the second, the intermediate statement of “Back On The Chain Gang” before the return of the third, and finally the most worthy selections from the fourth. As an added bonus for those who already owned these songs in some format, “Day After Day” appears in its single mix (with a fade instead of the plane-crash ending) and Chrissie’s recent duet on UB40’s cover of “I Got You Babe” closes the set.

Taken together, all of the songs on The Singles flow well, from ballad to rocker to punk to soul, despite being played by different bands. And anything that gives the consumer reason to avoid Get Close is a good thing.

Pretenders The Singles (1987)—4

Pretenders 4: Get Close

Learning To Crawl celebrated Chrissie Hynde’s determination to rock alongside life as a mother. Within a year’s time she married Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, and had a child with him (her second). His band had its biggest-ever success with a song thrust upon them for a John Hughes film, before releasing an album that rode that hit’s coattails. Once Upon A Time sported a slick, synthy sound, thanks to producers Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain. That same team could get the bulk of the blame for the prettified Get Close, but as Chrissie seemed to think it okay, it really is her fault.

For starters, the tight unit that propelled most of Learning To Crawl only appears on the closing track, a synth-heavy cover of Hendrix’s “Room Full Of Mirrors”. The ten songs prior to that deliver edgeless pop from a revolving set of musicians, anchored by guitarist Robbie McIntosh and the drummer from Haircut 100.

Only the first single, “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, can remotely be called catchy. The other radio hits were “My Baby” (dripping with sentimentality and including a rather obvious sound effect in a cheering audience) and “Hymn To Her”, a celebration of (take your pick) the Goddess, womynhood, somebody’s mother or all of the above. If not for her wavering voice, there’s little connection to the bite of the first two albums. “Chill Factor” tries to speak for the gender as well, but is a pale copy of her own version of “Thin Line Between Love And Hate”.

Particularly painful are the slightly political rants “Dance!” and “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?”, which pit ordinary R&B riffs to ill-advised club beats, complete with dated keyboards and vocal modulations. “I Remember You” and “Tradition Of Love” beg to be skipped, but the biggest head-scratcher is “Light Of The Moon”, written by Bowie cohort Carlos Alomar and two modern jazz performers, one of whom can’t even spell Chrissie’s name right on the credits section of his website.

Chrissie is the only Pretender shown on the front cover of Get Close, and when the 1990 model arrived, the name of the “band” was its own joke. Martin Chambers would eventually return to the fold, and every couple of years she’ll put out a new album under the Pretenders name. (Malcolm Foster, who played bass on Learning To Crawl, hasn’t been heard from since.) Still, Chrissie remains an icon and a legend, one of the best voices in rock. And for that, she doesn’t have to do anything else. But sometimes we wish she wouldn’t bother.

The Pretenders Get Close (1986)—1½
2007 expanded, remastered CD: same as 1986, plus 6 extra tracks

Pretenders 3: Learning To Crawl

Two of her band members were dead or dying, but Chrissie Hynde still had a need to express herself musically (plus a recording contract that required her to do so). She started out with a few singles to mark time until a replacement band would come together, and when it did, she successfully pieced together an album from those singles, in a similar fashion as both previous Pretenders albums.

Learning To Crawl doesn’t have the rebellious edge of the first two Pretenders albums, but it does deliver tight rock and roll, tempered with a certain maturity that came as a result of not just the death of her mates, but also the birth of her first child. This fact is pointedly brought up in the climactic verse of “Middle Of The Road”, which opens the album with a drum solo before cascading through an infectious riff and hearty backing vocals. The year-old single “Back On The Chain Gang” had already been a huge hit on the radio and MTV, and taken as something of a tribute to James Honeyman-Scott within her typically evasive lyrics. “Time The Avenger” and “Watching The Clothes” offer opposing views of daily life, the former of a businessman, the latter of someone literally doing her laundry. Her slightly softer side emerges on “Show Me” a rocking lullaby-cum-apology to her baby daughter.

The single mom theme seems to continue through the rockabilly-flavored “Thumbelina”, but a more autographical story emerges on “My City Was Gone”. A remarkably simple song (and the B-side to “Chain Gang”), it effectively updates the concern about urban sprawl originally voiced by Joni Mitchell on “Big Yellow Taxi” with the sad recognition that one can’t go home again. (This was made even more apparent once it got co-opted by Rush Limbaugh, who obviously hasn’t listened to the words.) Apparently not about to do any more Kinks covers, this time Chrissie puts her best aching croon on the obscure Hey Love soul classic “Thin Line Between Love And Hate”. That song’s themes about abusive relationships are reflected somewhat in “I Hurt You”, the weakest track on the album. But the album ends well with the modern Christmas classic “2000 Miles.”

Having survived such losses, it was hoped that the Pretenders would continue to make albums as strong as Learning To Crawl. But by the time the next one came out, drummer Martin Chambers was gone, and even Robbie McIntosh would soon find work with Paul McCartney. For many, this album is where the story ends. Or should have. But that would have gone against her survival instinct.

The Pretenders Learning To Crawl (1984)—3½
2007 expanded, remastered CD: same as 1984, plus 7 extra tracks

Pretenders 2: Pretenders II

With few exceptions, most sequels are doomed to be letdowns in comparisons with what came before. The Pretenders had a tall order to fill for their second album, which they kept simple by titling it Pretenders II and going out of the way to make Chrissie Hynde look almost pretty on the cover.

The album is just as tough as the first, blistering with heavy guitars and angry songwriting. And like the first, it was anchored by a couple of great singles. “Message Of Love” is so simple, yet so perfect, and “Talk Of The Town” brings back the pop influences that made her first singles so good. (Both of these had appeared in the U.S. on a maxi-single suitably titled Extended Play, which also included their B-sides “Cuban Slide” and “Porcelain”, plus a killer live version of “Precious”.)

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Pretenders album without a Kinks cover, and “I Go To Sleep” did more for Ray Davies than anyone else could at the time. (And it wasn’t even a hit! The only Kinks version exists as a demo, yet Chrissie is the reason why anybody thinks of the song today. Their romance may not have lasted past the birth of their daughter, but Ray can thank the Pretenders for at least one sizable figure on his royalty checks.)

There’s a certain standard to be followed, and they do their best to keep up with it. “The Adultress” [sic] and “Bad Boys Get Spanked” continue the sado-masochistic overtones, while a cod-reggae track, “Waste Not Want Not”, shows up right where it’s supposed to on side two. Meanwhile, “Pack It Up” and “Day After Day” plow through the speakers with excellent construction. The big question mark is “Louie Louie”, which seems to strive to update the original with quotes from “In The Midnight Hour” and “All The Young Dudes”, resulting in a chaotic, horn-driven mess issued as a single.

Still, with all that, the Pretenders had so much to live up to so that Pretenders II is an anticlimax, and it’s nobody’s fault. The expanded Rhino CD might have had even less to work with, a few of the B-sides already having appeared on the expanded debut. But the label managed to find a few nuggets from the vault, which capped a bonus disc filled out with the contents of another contemporary promo-only live disc. The 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition added even more music from that gig, along with further music from the show that begat the live “Precious” from Extended Play, which also finally made it to digital.

Even though the album paled in comparison the debut, the extra material proves just how tight this band was. As Chrissie said at her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, if it weren’t for Jimmy and Pete, “we wouldn’t be here. And on the other hand, without us, they might have been here.” Within two years’ time, both would be dead. Listening to the blistering performances here—many of which improve on the album versions—it’s absolutely clear that their demise dealt a devastating blow to rock ‘n roll.

Pretenders Extended Play (1981)—4
Pretenders Pretenders II (1981)—3½
2006 expanded, remastered CD: same as 1980, plus 18 extra tracks
2021 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition: same as 1981, plus 12 extra tracks

Pretenders 1: Pretenders

This is one of the best debut albums of all time. From start to finish Pretenders delivers on the promise of Chrissie Hynde, who’d left Akron to be a rock critic in London and formed the Pretenders as an outlet for her unique energy and Kinks fixation. These songs are alternatively angry and tender, giving girl guitar players an icon to emulate, and giving the guys reason to keep up their chops. From Mariah to Sheryl to Shania and even Madonna and Gwen, today’s so-called divas and artists need to appreciate the doors Chrissie kicked down for them. She’s as important a female rock influence as Joni Mitchell.

The band was incredible. James Honeyman-Scott was an incredibly lyrical, inventive guitarist and songwriter, taking the best elements of English punk and Townshend windmilling. Plus, he wore great cowboy shirts.

Pete Farndon kept the bottom on a Rickenbacker (or Fender) bass, throwing in a melody here and there to work right off the other guys. Plus, he had a pompadour to put the Stray Cats to shame, and he’d probably glass you in a pub brawl.

Martin Chambers was—and still is—capable of playing everything from rimshot ballads to careening locomotives, and few other drummers could keep up with Chrissie’s 7/4 and 9/4 changes. Plus, he had great sideburns. (Note the use of past tense with the exception of the drummer; after only the second album Farndon would be kicked out for his heroin use, and Honeyman-Scott died two days later from his own. Farndon lived another ten months.)

And the songs: “Precious” is a classic kick-off (and kiss-off), and there’s barely a moment to breathe before “The Phone Call”, one of several songs with garbled words and stumbly meter. “Up The Neck” seems to be about bondage or an overdose, but “Tattooed Love Boys” is almost definitely about bondage. “Space Invader” is an instrumental complete with Atari effects at the end, crashing right into “The Wait”. “Stop Your Sobbing” was their first single, and the definitive version of the Kinks song.

After all that side two is almost relaxing. “Kid” will forever be linked with the video clip on the merry-go-round, to go along with the low guitar line that anchors the song and the daring key change in the middle. “Private Life” is pretty good spooky reggae for a bunch of white kids. “Brass In Pocket” is probably their most famous song, and if you don’t think you know it, that’s because you think it’s called “I’m Special”. “Lovers Of Today” seems tame at first, but those guitars at the end paint on several layers of ache. The big payoff comes at the end, with the pounding drums, driving bass, machine gun guitars and echoey vocals on “Mystery Achievement”.

Some of these songs had already been issued as singles, and it’s another testament to the power of Pretenders that it holds together nonetheless. While they had their moments, none of the later albums lived up to the promise of the first. Once Chrissie was the only Pretender left, the band’s name became all too apt. Though she did the right thing by getting Martin back behind the kit in the ‘90s, the debut is still the reason why you care in the first place.

Rhino kindly remastered and expanded the album to two discs in the 21st century, with a pile of demos, live tracks and such key B-sides as “Cuban Slide” and “Porcelain”. Most but not all of these extras made to the deluxe three-disc expansion fifteen years later. This time the five B-sides were added to first disc after the album proper, while the second disc was loaded with demos, including some previously unreleased songs, and the performances from two BBC appearances. (One surprise is “Do I Love You”, a pre-Pretenders Ronettes cover recorded with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols.) A live BBC performance kicks off the third disc, followed by a more complete recording of a Boston show that had been a promo disc and Record Store Day extra. All in all, a stellar album made that much better. Unless this was your third or fourth time buying it.

Pretenders Pretenders (1980)—5
2006 expanded, remastered CD: same as 1980, plus 16 extra tracks
2021 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition: same as 1980, plus 43 extra tracks