When: Released January 11, 1980
Why? I’ve only heard a few of the radio hits and just thought they were okay. But the group has been considered highly influential on bands I like, including No Doubt and Garbage, which put iconic female singers/songwriters front and center.
What? Twelve songs, 47 minutes. This is the Pretenders’ debut album.
First Impressions: This is, at various times, punk, New Wave, radio-friendly pop, reggae, and Sixties guitar band. If there’s a unifying presence to the Pretenders’ first album it’s the distinctive voice and lyrics of founder Chrissie Hynde.
Given the veiled, cryptic nature of most of the lyrics, I can’t really begin to decipher them…or, unfortunately, even relate to them. Nearly all of the songs seem to carry weight, though, telling stories or revealing memories that feel grounded in at least some kind of real-life experience (though not necessarily Hynde’s own).
The obvious exception is the instrumental “Space Invader” (by band members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon). But the cover song “Stop Your Sobbing” (by Ray Davies of the Kinks) is another; instrumentally and lyrically this one seems like the odd one out in this collection, and it was probably my least favorite track on the album. It’s not a bad song. It just doesn’t seem to belong here, particularly with the early Beatles-inspired instrumental break, which looks backward when the rest of the album feels so current and even forward-looking.
The album’s big hit, “Brass in Pocket”—perhaps the biggest hit of the Pretenders’ career—seems oddly “normal” among the sung-spoken poetic free verse that supports most of the songs. In fact, I think this may be the only track here (co-written by Hynde and Honeyman-Scott) that takes a wholly traditional approach to song structure.
So? I’m glad I took the time to listen to this…but I didn’t feel any connection to either the band or the album. At this point, I don’t know if I’d revisit it or not.