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| When I was in junior high, I really, really wanted to be Chrissie Hynde. A regular American heartland chick from Akron, Ohio, she lived out the rock 'n' roll fantasy of every early-'80s, MTV-addicted, suburban girl like myself. She moved to swinging London, where she landed a job at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's SEX boutique, rubbed safety-pinned shoulders with the Sex Pistols, wrote for NME under the tutelage of demi-legendary rock scribe Nick Kent, and even won the heart of her long-admired teenhood heartthrob, Ray Davies of the Kinks (this is the equivalent of me bagging Duran Duran's John Taylor now). Oh yeah--and she also formed a totally fierce, foxy, all-around fearsomely great band with three Brit gents and, in 1980, released one of the most kickass debut albums in rock history: The Pretenders I. Later singles came awfully close to recapturing the Pretenders' early magic (1983's "Back On The Chain Gang," in particular), but motherhood--while a noble pursuit, of course--seemed to temper Chrissie's unruly spirit a bit, making her less likely to tell people to fuck off in her songs and more prone to sweetly dueting with UB40 on "I Got You Babe" instead. And, more notably/tragically, when founding members James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon died from drug overdoses (and were subsequently replaced with session players), inevitably some of the original sparkle died as well. However, on The Pretenders, every element is in place, and every track is swaggering and staggering. This is "new wave" that still actually sounds new in 2001--that's a real mystery achievement. A perfect and potent blend of Midwestern grit and London flair, the album ignites immediately with the sneering, jeering "Precious," on which Chrissie sounds like she's got more balls than any hairy-chested cock-rocker one could conjure up. But she's never masculine or butch or militant--hers is a sexy, feminine toughness, the type that entices men as much as it intimidates them...the type of enviably shatterproof confidence that the strutting women in L'eggs commercials and the writers of that vapid "Fun...Fearless...Female!" column in Cosmo strive for. It's a kind of genuine girl power that Geri Halliwell could never imagine. Seriously, Ginger and the other Spice-racks could never pull off a line like "Trapped in a world that they never made/But not me, baby/I'm too precious/FUCK OFF!" and sound like they mean it, man. But there's no doubt that Chrissie means it. Elsewhere, on the group's American breakthrough single "Brass In Pocket," she declares her fail-safe plan to get her man (with determination only rivaled by her lipglossed peer Debbie Harry on Blondie's "One Way Or Another"), and despite the lusty intensity of her plea for his affection, not once does she come off like some desperate man-chaser, some new wave version of Ally McBeal. "I'm gonna make you see/There's nobody else here/No one like me/I'm special, so special/I gotta have some of your attention/Give it to me!" she demands impatiently; any heterosexual man would find it impossible to resist her kohl-eyed, hot-blooded charms. But there is tenderness on The Pretenders, too. Chrissie croons the band's imploring, aching cover of the Kinks ballad "Stop Your Sobbing" (recorded before she and Davies met) as if she is feeling lower than her lowest-slung guitar, and on the bittersweet original "Kid," she reveals the creamy center beneath her vocals' hard, brittle shell. She can lament, "Kid, gracious kid/Your eyes are blue, but you won't cry/I know angry tears are too dear/You won't let them go," and sound warm, wise, vulnerable--and yet, she still totally rocks. Let's see one of those lute-strumming, hypersensitive Lilith waifs (or a Photoshop-/ProTools-assisted robobabe like Britney) do that. Sure, Chrissie was (is) a formidable frontwoman, and one of the few real, enduring female rock 'n' roll models out there, combining the silky soul of Dusty Springfield with the punk-priestess bitchiness of Patti Smith (that's bitchy in a good way, and no, I don't mean in a Meredith Brooks way). But she is also the kind of woman who can make people forget she is a woman--in short, she's one of the guys. And obviously this album isn't by a band called Chrissie & Friends, so credit is due to those guys as well, as the tight-as-Spandex musicianship of guitarist Honeyman-Scott, bassist Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers brings out the best in Hynde's singing and songwriting here. Honeyman-Scott in particular plays in a signature rhythmic style that's as inventive and as influential on today's alt-rock guitarists as Johnny Marr's--it's truly unfortunate that he didn't stick around long enough to get his proper recognition. This original lineup is sadly long gone, so The Pretenders will always be the album that showcases Mizz Hynde at her fiery-yet-cool best. But there's no denying that the Great Pretender, now pushing 50, and is still special, so special--still fabulously stick-figure thin in her black leather trousers, still able to reduce Garbage's Shirley Manson to a puddle of sweat and tears with her mere presence, and, on top of all that, now married to a guy 15 years her junior! So, come to think of it, I still want to be Chrissie Hynde. Listen to this album and you will, too. --Lyndsey Parker (email)
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