When Chrissie Hynde and her band, the Pretenders, broke out in 1980, she presented a new kind of sexy. How to take her on first look/listen was hard to tell. Wielding a commanding contralto like a switchblade; sporting what looked like the most unfortunate overbite of the century; and dressed in knee-high black boots, British frock coats and shovels of black mascara hidden behind gaze-obscuring bangs, she looked like a Ronette from Hades. But if she looked like no one you'd ever seen, she certainly didn't sound like it either. The debut's opener, "Precious," was a thick barrage of dense guitars and propulsive percussion and the ultimate flip-off for a new wave. A song about cruising for sex custom-designed for both gays and straights that bluntly turned the tables on sexual bargaining with an abrupt kiss-off [ "...but not me, baby/I'm too precious—now F*CK OFF" ] .
"Private Life" was so loaded with dense innuendo, subversive psychology and animal sexual tension that Grace Jones—herself a walking mannequin of sheer aura—couldn't wait to cover it before the year was out. Nevermind all the other clatter on the radio or that new wave—The Pretenders and Hynde championed wave and punk in such a way as to contradict those ideals. Apart from Debbie Harry, punk was blatently unsexy and repellant [ which was the point ] and here was Hynde redefining it with abrasion, sinewy sex appeal, and cheeky wit.
It was a lot easier to view Hynde as the ultimate beady-eyed-bitch-beauty if you didn't pay attention. "Brass In Pocket" was the inverse of "Precious ( although the video went even further with Hynde, as a diner waitress, meekly hitting on guitarist Pete Farnsworth with all the panache of a gassed butterfly ) while "Talk of the Town" and "Messege Of Love" revealed a flash of Hynde's pop smarts.
The story is that Hynde nurtured her dream of rocking out in early '70s Akron, Ohio, by studying the likes of Ray Davies of the Kinks, perhaps the most British Brit rock band on the planet. Not finding compadres worthy of her drive at home, she hightailed it to the motherland ( London ) , where she became a fixture of the new late '70s scene ( working in Malcolm McLaren's SEX shop, and hanging with the Damned, Mick Jones and even Sid Vicious ) before getting together with Farnsworth, guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and drummer Martin Chambers. There first single, a cover of the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing" hit the "Top of the Pops" and the rest was supposed to be history.
It's a cliche in movie-star-movie biographies that, "It's all too FAST!!!" but in Hynde's case that's an understatement. The debut went gold, spawned two hit singles, a sellout world tour, a couple of Grammy nods and, for Hynde, the attentions of her hero, Davies. He left his wife and she left Farnsworth, Pretenders II didn't click like the debut, Davies got goofy ( as he has been known to do ) and, after having his daughter, Hynde dumped him. By the start of '81 Farnsworth and Scott were dead. Hynde re-emerged with the double-sided "Back on the Chain Gang/My City Was Gone" single and in '84, put it all into perspective with the best-selling Learning to Crawl. After marrying Jim Kerr of the band Simple Minds and enlarging her family, the Pretenders became Hynde's part-time gig.
Now the records come out every five or so years, and Hynde's preoccupations are hardly the rock-and-roll lifestyle but her kids ( she split with Kerr years ago ) , her vegatarian activism and her new restaurant in Akron, the Vegi Terranean. Since Crawl, the albums have lost there immediacy but there are always gems tucked inside each one [ "Night In My Veins," "Hymn to Her," "Love Colours" ] . So now we have Break Up the Concrete, tagged "Chrissie goes Country." Of course it's good, but is it essential Pretenders? Weeeeellllll...
For anyone who has heard "Rebel Rock Me" or "Thumbalina," Concrete isn't much of a surprise. Regardless of her blunt stances Hynde has always tipped her hat to her mentors. ( The name of her band is a nod to "The Great Pretender" single by the '50s group The Platters. ) And though Concrete is articulate, well-written and well-played ( in short, a "good record" ) , it's not what anyone would expect from her ( in short, a "ho-hum Pretenders record" ) —which isn't to take away from it. "Boots of Chinese Plastic" opens the album with a rockabilly strut while "Breaking Up the Concrete" closes it in the same way. "Nothing Maker" seems to drag on for days while "Don't Cut Your Hair" is full of dramatic crescendos and the most attentive vocal by Hynde on the disc. "Love's A Mystery" sticks out along with "Rosalee" by way of some punchy writing and current guitarist James Welbourne's fleet picking. But, well, it feels like a mere momento, not the genuine article or declaration of a longtime rebel like Hynde.
But if anyone needed a clue as to how the new album fit into the Pretender's history, their show at the Riviera answered those questions in spades. "Boots" and "Message of Love" kicked the show off in high gear while "Don't Get Me Wrong" and "My City was Gone" kept the SRO crowd bouncing. Then came a mid-set sequence of the new music and the 40-50-year-old crowd became quickly silent. "Boredom" is a word that I'm reluctant to use here, but the slide guitars and forlorn vocals nearly sucked the air out of the room. Thankfully, "Rosalee" and "Thumbalina" re-ignited the crowd and Welbourne's furious playing put the show back on track. Then came a barrage of classics; "Cuban Slide" with it's sluggish whomp, "Brass in Pocket" with Hynde uncharacteristically playing the vamp ( and obviously loving it ) , and three encores of half of that 29-year-old debut ( "Kid," "The Wait," "Tattooed Love Boys, and, yep, "Precious" ) .
Sure they left their audience in a jolly state but one has to wonder: With Hynde nearing retirement age ( 57, though a HOT 57 ) and her past adventures now becoming what would be called a "sane" life, do she and the Pretenders have much new to offer? We'll see next time.
