To enjoy Prime Music, go to Your Music Library and transfer your account to (US). Presently, the Pretenders are comprised of Chrissie Hynde (lead singer/guitar), Martin Chambers (drums), Eric Heywood (guitar), James Walbourne (guitar), and Nick Wilkinson (bass).įun Fact: Before forming the Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde was a devoted member of the London punk scene, writing for music rag New Musical Express and working as a clerk in Sex Pistols svengali Malcolm McLaren’s infamous boutique, SEX. Settings Boots of Chinese Plastic Pretenders From the Album Break Up The Concrete Janu4.5 out of 5 stars8 ratings Listen Now Buy song 0. Settings Boots of Chinese Plastic Pretenders From the Album Break Up The Concrete Janu4.5 out of 5 stars8 ratings Listen Now Buy song 0.99 Your Amazon Music account is currently associated with a different marketplace. A steady string of musicians have played with the band, including former Smiths members Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke, as well as session musician and part-time Talking Heads keyboardist Bernie Worrell. Who? Throughout the Pretenders’ nine-album discography, from 1980’s classic self-titled debut and its underrated 1981 follow-up, Pretenders II, to Loose Screw (featuring songwriting from Jarvis Cocker), the band’s lineup has seen many changes, tragically due to the drug-related deaths of founding members James Honeyman-Scott (guitar) and Pete Farndon (bass). ![]() On October 7, the Pretenders return with Break Up the Concrete, the band’s first studio album since 2002’s reggae-influenced Loose Screw, chock full of rockabilly-tinged songs showcasing Hynde’s ability to write both shuffling rockers (“Boots of Chinese Plastic”) and instantly pleasing pop songs (“The Nothing Maker”). The title song, a rough sequel to “My City Was Gone,” is an environmental anthem that doesn’t see conservation as passive, or even particularly nonviolent: Hynde’s idea of caring for the planet involves destroying what’s been built by industry, with impunity (“thwack it, crack it, lineback it / break up the concrete”), and chronicling the assault with a Bo Diddley beat.What? Over nearly 30 tumultuous years, pop-punk luminary and raucous frontwoman Chrissie Hynde’s tried and true dedication to music’s creation has kept her perennially underappreciated Pretenders alive and able to turn out multi-faceted new wave sonic stylings. The songs gain immediacy through direct address (“Don’t Cut Your Hair,” “You Didn’t Have To,” “Rosalee”), and the exceptions tend to be irresistible pop songs like “Love’s a Mystery,” in which Hynde employs a slightly elevated class of moon-June-spoon rhymes (morning/warning, mystery/history), but with the added benefit of context, sensibility, wisdom, and her nearly undiminished upper register. Her persona is largely the same as it was on the band’s 1979 début, which is to say that it is tough and smart and confident and questioning and vulgar and philosophical and energetic and weary all at once. The band’s enthusiasm is easy to understand Hynde has written a superb set of songs here. The punky “Don’t Cut Your Hair” blasts first and asks questions later “Almost Perfect” steals along with a lovely tiptoe movement. That’s true of the entire band, in fact: the English guitarist James Walbourne, the pedal-steel player Eric Heywood, and the bassist Nick Wilkinson. This time, Chambers is absent, though his replacement-the session veteran Jim Keltner-is a great deal more than capable. For years, the Pretenders have been a band in name only, consisting of a bunch of young hired hands doing the bidding of Hynde and, usually, the founding drummer, Martin Chambers. ![]() ![]() “Break Up the Concrete” is the first album of new material from the Pretenders since “Loose Screw,” in 2002, and while that record found the band going for a seductive reggae vibe, this time the charge is straightforward roots rock.
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