The Pretenders

Love the band. Love Chrissie. Their debut album is near-perfect.

Saw the current version last year. She looks and sounds great.

Chrissie's influence on Madonna in 1980

Their second album is very underrated for some reason.

"English Roses," "Louie Louie," and "I Go To Sleep" have always been favorites of mine.

Yes, I am a fan. And I hate McDonalds, so that works out quite nicely.

I saw the Pretenders in concert in their prime. I wasn't expecting it, but Chrissie Hynde's voice was so clear and on-key.

I haven't listened to them for a long time. The first song that comes to mind is "Kid." I was surprised to find they did "I'm Not In Love," which is on the "Indecent Proposal" soundtrack.

Love the band and love the music, but Chrissie is a preening diva. Saw them once in concert and she literally threatened to stop the show and walk off stage if people didn't stop taking her pic with their cell phones. This was about 10 years ago and I thought, "Honey, you should be glad people still want to take your pic after 30 years in the business." Read her autobio and my opinion didn't change. Her ego is just too much. But, I still like her music.

No, Aspie Pop Cataloguer, we hate Chryssie Hynde.

That's why we've only started a dozen threads about her on Datalounge.

Chrissie is a devoted animal lover, a vegan, and by all accounts, a lovely person.

R7 spends too much time of his time playing video games -- and hoping, some day, to leave home, perhaps when he reaches the age of 50 -- to have much of a grasp of the world outside his mother's basement.

I like this live version of Back on the Chain Gang

I go to sleep and imagine that you're there with me...

I only just recently found out that she and Stevie Nicks did a tour together a couple of years ago. They sounded great together from the Youtube footage I've seen thus far.

Read her memoir it's amazing. There is a very interesting part about her rape where she is very clearheaded about her own responsibility in the situation. A little heartbreaking is the fact that Brass in Pocket is a song she wishes she never had to sing again.

Meh. Could be listenable, most often easily ignored.

HUGE fan

Learning To Crawl is one hell of an album.

[r9] Honey, I live on my own and am sitting on a bigger pile of cash than you can imagine.

[quote]Are you a fan of the Pretenders?

No - and I was bang on their era.

But I bought her book and REALLY enjoyed it and grew to like her a lot. I just skipped most the parts when she talked about the music.

[quote]Saw them once in concert and she literally threatened to stop the show and walk off stage if people didn't stop taking her pic with their cell phones.

I dont blame her at all

[quote] This was about 10 years ago and I thought, "Honey, you should be glad people still want to take your pic after 30 years in the business."

The fact is, they do.

People are very nostalgic for the music of their youth. There are singers who had two hits in 1966, still doing the circuit and making a living out of it.

Saw the band twice in their early days, when I could join a mosh pit!

Saw her solo concert 3 years ago, and loved seeing all the 'no cell phone pics' warning signs in the lobby. It was the first time in years that I enjoyed a rock concert without a sea of cell phones (until the encore).

She can be as much of a diva/bitch as she wants. Her music and the band's songs kept me happy through the years.

Chrissie does The Beach Boys - on her forthcoming album.

It's pretty rough.

Odd she's singing a love song to a gurl.

I had their/her first album on an endless loop for months when it first came out (yes, I’m that old). I think she’s fucking fantastic.

I love them.

Chrissie’s one of my goddesses. Also vegan and animal lover.

R13, her blaming herself for getting raped is exactly why I lost interest in her.

Also, though he wasn’t around long, Honeyman-Scott’s guitar work should be taught as primer for budding rockers

Da bomb "Precious"

[quote]Saw them once in concert and she literally threatened to stop the show and walk off stage if people didn't stop taking her pic with their cell phones. This was about 10 years ago and I thought, "Honey, you should be glad people still want to take your pic after 30 years in the business.

I don't blame her. I can't imagine how it is as a performer to be up there working that stage, and have everyone just standing still in the fucking audience holding up a cell phone. What happened to going to a show and actually enjoying the fucking show? Performers want people to dance around and get into it.

YES!!! I’ve seen them twice: once in the 80s and Chrissie alone about four years ago.

I love the Pretenders!!! Thanks for starting this thread. Looking forward to discovering some new gems here

I love her voice and her phrasing. Love. I'm listening to that live Back On the Chain Gang posted above.

Yep, grew up with her, wished I could be her and love their music.

Love the lyrics in this one.

That song is so dreary. I don't love it. But you're right about the lyrics.

What do you call what she's doing with her voice? Utterly unique.

She's sexy.

She really was hot back then. I find the hard driving guitars anything but dreary, R34, but whatever.

Here's another one that still stands the test of time. So long ago, still true....

No one like her before or since. She's the reason I can't listen to much modern shit these days. They just don't have the style, the licks, the lyrics or the stage command.

Honeyman Scott, damn, one of the all time best and gone too soon.

Up the Neck

A good example of Honeyman-Scott's jingle jangle style.

My favorite version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and I always listen for it.

Chrissie Hynde is a cunt of the highest order. She should be kept in a cage with electrified bars.

Her voice is like crystal. I love several of their songs.

Go back to your Susan Boyle CDs, R39.

I didn't like so much at the height of their popularity but in Hynde-sight I really like them/her a lot!

They don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Thanks, R43, loved it!

Here you go, Precious.

"I Got You Babe" with Chrissie and UB40 is one of the better modern rock remakes.

"...her blaming herself for getting raped is exactly why I lost interest in her."

I'll never lose interest in her music, but yeah, that was huge disappointment. She's been drinking the Third Wave Kool-Aid. "I'm not like those OTHER girls!"

I’m not defending what she said about the rape. But I see her as a woman who *must* be in control — it’s how she makes sense of a senseless world, it’s why she’s vegan, outspoken, etc. I think her way of reclaiming her own power within the rape is to take complete ownership for her horrible judgement and decision-making that day. Obviously, what bothers everyone else about this is the horror that *other* women would be judged by these standards in a rape. I see no harm in giving Chrissy the space to tell her own story from her perspective on the rape — as long as she would not judge other women who are raped. There is no excuse for rape.

R47, Chrissy is someone who has been a feminist icon for decades. If she had such a need for control that she went into total denial about her rape-- that she somehow could have prevented it-- okay, fine, do it on your shrink's couch. But she knows she is famous and admired, and that she is modeling this as a legitimate response to other women and girls. I just feel it was really irresponsible.

Her attitude towards the rape is a green light for every straight man, she is no role model for women.

Their cover of Creep; one of the best.

That’s totally fair r48, and I can’t disagree with you about it, what you say is completely true. I’m just sharing my armchair diagnosis of her is all. I’m a huge huge fan, I still listen now and then, but way before her book came out, I decided that I think she’s kind of an asshole.

They all are, rock stars I mean, and female rock stars are even worse because in order to withstand the misogyny and glass ceiling bullshit, they have to become utterly self-centered and driven, to an unhealthy, very sick place that warps their outlook on both life and themselves. Even Joni Mitchell is a huge cunt, and she is also someone I looooove listening to. It goes back to the eternal debate about separating the artwork from the artist. Most great art is made by assholes, and if I stopped listening or looking or smelling or tasting or touching the great artwork of every artist who I think is a shitty human being, there would literally be nothing left but Bieber and Grande.

Their Bond song wasn't half bad, either.

Kim Deal on Chrissie Hynde: "Just about the only chick in rock I really liked was Chrissie Hynde. There was this rumor that she was going to appear during the encore of an Urge Overkill show at Irving Plaza and I was in town, so I went down there. After Urge Overkill finished, they introduced a special guest and it was Chrissie Hynde and they did “Precious” and man, I was almost in tears. The whole muddy, ugly sound of Urge Overkill just automatically cleared up. The sound system itself sounded better. She just did one song and it was so cool, so amazing. Anyway, there was this after-show party at a bar around the corner and I went over and Ed [“King” Roeser, Urge bassist] was with Chrissie and she’s drinking tequila out of a bottle in her purse and making out with him pretty heavy in the booth. I guess because Ed’s girlfriend person or whatever was in the bar, he started encouraging me, really encouraging me, to come over and meet Chrissie. I guess he was trying to finesse the situation or something .And I’m like, you know, “This doesn’t seem like the right time, Ed,” but I sat down next to the booth and he’s trying to interrupt this makeout session with Chrissie Hynde to introduce me. So finally he pulled away from her and said, “Chrissie, this is Kim from the Breeders.” And Chrissie looked up, kind of confused, and said in this slurred voice, “You’re not a chick, you’re a dude.” Then she reached out and grabbed my boob. So I’m in shock, right, and I guess Chrissie got embarrassed, because then she grabbed my hand and put it on her boob, like it was a boob-off or something. I don’t know why I had to touch hers too, but I just got up and left, it was awful….Actually, though, looking back on it, I’m kind of glad that she didn’t turn out to be all nice and down-to-earth. She was kind of an asshole and I kind of liked that." Did you think she’d know who you were? "Oh, I don’t know why she would have. I just didn’t think she would be a gender person. I don’t know why it was important to her whether I was a girl or a guy, but I guess it was. " - SPIN magazine July 1995

Saw them in 99 OPENING for the B-52's?? I was a huge Pretenders fan and never understood that. The B's were ok and fun but Chrissie was epic. Hymn to Her was brilliant.

Can’t remember where I heard/read this, but one of her band mates basically said she was tone deaf and can’t keep tempo. He said the band ferociously struggled to anticipate what she would do, when she would do it, etc. From a musician’s perspective, it sounded positively draining!!

But what a testament to her artistry if true — that means she performs in her own bubble and likely hears these melodies inside, it’s not that she’s responding to cues from her band.

I love Chrissie and love the Pretenders, but their best stuff goes up to and including Get Close, and from then on it's been diminishing returns.

However, the first few albums are classic, and she wrote one of the best songs ever written in Back on the Chain Gang. Every aspect of it is fucking FLAWLESS - that guitar track, her vocals, the tough on the outside while my heart is breaking inside vibe. It makes me tear up a little bit every time I hear it.

I didn't agree with her rape comments, but the outcry was obviously from people who didn't know her very well.

In the 90's she trashed Alanis Morrissette for writing that line about going down on a man in a theater in You Oughta Know, and said if a man did that, he'd be called a sexist pig. She's never had any use for the whole "women can be as dirty and vulgar as men" idea and has called pop stars who sell sex with their music prostitutes masquerading as musicians.

And is she not correct r57? All of the greats of her era sold their music without looking and acting like whores. Think about how you don’t even know how these classic pop-rock-soul singing female stars look in a bikini: Chrissy, Stevie, the Wilson sisters, Aretha, Donna Summer, Carole King, Joni, Grace Slick, Janis, Diana, Pat Benatar, Debra Harry etc.

Carly Simon is an exception, I suppose you could say Dolly really played up her huge cans, Grace Jones, there are a few more exceptions. But by and large, most of these huge stars didn’t use blatant, crude sexuality on the stage to be successful. That took stones, especially back then.

The thing with Hynde, traditionally female rock singers screamed or screeched but Chrissie's voice was deep, dark and sultry and that totally set her apart from other female rock singers.

R54 - I saw that show as well, at Radio City Music Hall, and the Pretenders sounded fantastic - I was blown away by how great she sounded live. The B52’s.... not so much - they are a studio creation not a line act.

R58 I'm not saying she's not correct, I'm just saying that the outrage she got over those rape comments were from people who didn't know her viewpoints very well.

Hynde has nothing in common with modern day feminism, so why they thought she would be a poster child or icon for it is interesting.

I've seen her and The Pretenders 6 times and they always kicked ass. Once at a venue in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, which is where she was born, someone shouted out "Cuyahoga Falls!" She yelled back, "Fuck you, I'm from Akron!"

I also remember an interview with her about the time Pretenders II came out and the interviewer asked, "How does it feel to be the queen of Rock-n-Roll?" Her response was, "Go fuck yourself."

Gotta love her, she's real.

I also love her for the story where she went to a Joni Mitchell concert (she loves Joni) and drunkenly called out to the stage "Thank you for staying with us, Joni."

And then apparently shook Carly Simon, pointed back at the stage and said, "That's a real rock and roll bitch up there, lady!"

Nothing against Carly at all, I just think it's amusing and very, very on brand for Chrissie.

"The B52’s.... not so much - they are a studio creation not a line act."

Mmm, I dunno... I saw them in 1989 when they were out supporting Cosmic Thing and it was maybe the best live show I've ever seen. They were all just fabulous and the audience went wild.

Where did you see them r64? I think they were great live too. Chrissy is just on another level. Wait a minute....is Chrissy a prototype for Courtney Love? Discuss !

Cunt.

R64 - well it was 10 years later, and maybe they were having an off night, but after Chrissie they sounded pretty bad - I was surprised and disappointed because I love the band. R60

The Pretenders album Alone from 2016 easily ranks in the top five of the records she’s done. There’s not a dud in the bunch, and the production gives the sound a raw sixties feel that suits her quite well.

Her solo record from five years ago is really good.

"The B52’s.... not so much - they are a studio creation ..."

What a fucking idiot you are. They were a messy little party band for years before they set foot in a studio.

Gratuitous cuntiness in this NPR interview. She sounds like a truly miserable creature.

Nah, Chrissie just doesn't suffer fools.

New music.

Talk of the Town acoustic live

For those of you who took issue with Chrissie’s reaction to her rape, you’re going to have a fit over Debby Harry’s. “In the end, the stolen guitars hurt me more than the rape,” she wrote. “I mean we had no equipment.”

I am a big fan of the Pretenders. It is a pity they all died of drug overdoses except for Chrissie.

I love the Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde, but between her rape comments and R57’s stories, she sounds like s slut-shaming prude.

She didn’t give a fuck what people thought back in the day.

And she still doesn’t.

It was her rape. She can feel and say whatever she wants. There’s no one way to feel about any life experience. You are who you are, feel what you feel....I like it when people are real, I don’t care as much about content, or what they say, I appreciate the authenticity. So refreshing when someone, especially celebrity has balls to be themselves, not a planned PR, sound bite, or careful about how others will interpret or feel.

Courtney Love said when her Mom moved to New Zealand with the rest of the family and left Courtney behind in juvie school was when she discovered the first Runaways and Pretenders albums.

When I saw them in Cincy in 99 I met the B's - they were great but Cindy refused to attend the Meet and Greet. Kate, Keith (God he was beautiful) and Fred were endearing. Kate and Chrissie Hynde showed up to protest at Procter and Gamble over animal testing. Love them.

Chrissie Hynde covers Streisand.

The new record is great.