i shot my mouth off and you showed me what that hole was for

89.

pretenders
the pretenders [sire, 1980]

many female musicians have attempted to co-opt the unrepentant machismo, the primal urgency, the reckless abandonment of good ol' fashioned guitar-based rawk n' roll, but none have done so with the conflicting vulnerability of Chrissie Hynde. yes, she performs as the predator, the player, the peddler, and the pretender [har!], but, despite all her blue-balling bluster, she's an arch sentimentalist at her core. with the valor and vim and vigor of punk and a pop sensibility borrowed from the sixties, few debut records are as unapologetically fierce as Pretenders. "precious" and "the wait" are both chugging, after-school detention attention-grabbers, with Hynde literally telling a dude to "fuck off" in the former. the rustling drums and chiming guitars on "tattooed love boys" underscore Hynde's tale of sexual awakening. even gratuitously catchy MONSTER HIT "brass in pocket" is laden with innuendo and cocksure swagger. however, the aching sadness on the Nick Lowe-produced cover of the Kinks' "stop your sobbing," the surprising tenderness on tough-love ballad "kid," and the hopelessly melancholic "lovers of today" belie Hynde's tough girl image. though the laboriously dull reggae-tinged "private life" threatens to dilute the visceral impact of the record's second half, salvation arrives in the form of the uplifting "mystery achievement." Hynde's Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy would eventually coalesce, and, due to shifting lineups, the Pretenders would never again sound as raw and edgy, but the beautiful contradictions exposed on this record still resonate.

unsung guitar hero moment: though the Pretenders weren't as musically innovative as many of their peers, guitarist James Honeyman-Scott injects a lot of sharp-edged post-punk nastiness, especially on the spasmodic break-down in "tattooed love boys." too bad he OD'd on blow a few years after this album was released.