The 1980s - Tears for Fears

I am a sucker for good English pop songs.  That’s why I like Tears for Fears.  A guilty pleasure?  Perhaps.  If Ritchie Blackmore and Cozy Powell can like ABBA, I can like Tears for Fears.  They came along at a time [the 1980s] when I was of college age, when She Who Must Be Obeyed and I started to get serious.  Hearing them today reminds me of that time, before middle age, before deaths in the family, before the bodily sound effects that come with waking up every morning, before cancer, and before dementia.

I first heard this group in 1985.  They had this album called Songs from the Big Chair.  When I saw the cover of the album I thought “who are these smug-looking English twerps with bad 80s haircuts”?  And what was this "big chair" that these songs came from?  More on that later.  Tears for Fears [where did that name come from?] was two guys from Bath, England - Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith.  In an interview with iTunes, Curt Smith described the both of them as guys who didn’t know their fathers very well and were primarily brought up by their mothers.  Both are in my age group [a little more than a year older than me].  Both had an interest in primal therapy and the writings of Arthur Janov.  If you know anything about the Beatles, you’ll recognize that name.  John Lennon heard about his primal scream therapy, which was a huge influence on the songs on the solo debut John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.  One of Janov’s books, Prisoners of Pain (1980), talked about children’s nightmares and the need for “monsters”.  Children invent things that they’re scared of because they’re afraid to admit the real things they are scared of, which could be parents, teachers, peer groups, etc.  The theory is that if children were allowed to be more natural [like crying, for instance] instead of being told to shut up and quit crying, then maybe they wouldn’t have these fears – tears as a replacement for fears, hence the band’s name.

I wasn’t what one would call a huge Tears for Fears fan.  Far from it - I was a casual fan at best.  I was on my own musical trip in those days which had nothing to do with English pop.  Songs from the Big Chair is probably everything one could ask for in a mid-1980s album.  Keyboard synthesizers? Check. Programmed drum machines? Check.  Somewhat pretentious lyrics? Check.  Bad haircuts?  Check.  Very British?  Double check.  Suffice to say, Songs from the Big Chair is an album of its time that could be a museum piece for 1980s music.  But here’s the catch – there are some catchy pop tunes contained therein.  The songs were always on the radio.  We didn’t get MTV where I lived.  On the occasions I did get a glimpse of MTV, there were the TFF videos for Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World in constant rotation.  Suffice to say, TFF got a heavy dose of exposure from the musical outlets at the time.  This was a time when radio DJs could play pretty much whatever they wanted to play, and MTV actually played music videos.  Oddly enough, although Shout and Everybody Wants to Rule the World made a mint, they weren’t even the best songs on the album.  I thought the two songs were okay, but then I heard the six-note introduction to the next single, Head Over Heels.  THAT song piqued my interest.  That was the hook, and I’ve been hooked ever since.  Oh…that “big chair”?  They got the title from the movie Sybil, she of the multiple personalities.  Tony’s rating – 4.

To show how closely I paid attention to TFF, for years I thought Songs from the Big Chair was their debut album [heresy!].  That honor goes to The Hurting (1983).  I’m sure only the hardest of hardcore TFF fans knew of this album’s existence.  It did well in the UK but barely dented the album and singles charts over here.  It is only in retrospect that I found there was more music where Songs from the Big Chair came from.  While both Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith shared an interest in the work of Arthur Janov, Orzabal wrote all the songs on The Hurting.  And all the songs touch on, one way or another, subjects covered by Janov in his work – primal scream therapy, broken relationships, childhood trauma and the like.  Curt Smith sang the more poppy tunes like Mad World and Pale Shelter, while Roland Orzabal took the main mic on the more brooding, navel-gazing material.  As for the sound of the album, I hear lots of Peter Gabriel’s third album.  You wouldn’t think such dark subject matter would sell many records, but UK fans ate it up.  I wasn’t a teenager in Maggie Thatcher’s England so I probably can’t relate personally, but this music struck a chord with the English music-buying public.  Some of what is contained within The Hurting is music to slit your wrists by.  Trent Reznor probably owes his career to these guys.  Tony’s rating – 3.75.

Things got more interesting for me regarding Tears for Fears.  In 1989 they had a new album, The Seeds of Love.  The title song [sort of] was Sowing the Seeds of Love, and it sounded very familiar, almost too familiar.  And then it hit me – I Am the Walrus!  That was one of the more wacked-out songs John Lennon ever did, and it remains one of my favorites to this day.  It turns out I wasn’t far off the mark.  A few years ago, TFF did a live-in-the-studio concert that was like a VH1 Storytellers format.  Roland Orzabal told the story of the song’s creation.  He wrote it during the same week Maggie Thatcher won her third election as British Prime Minister in 1987.  Hence the line about someone not “knowing how the majority feels”.  Curt Smith chimed in that the song was an homage, a “blatant rip-off” of I Am the Walrus.  Even if you played the song acoustically you can hear how Beatle-esque the song is.  Suspicion confirmed! 😊

The idea for the whole album was to get away from that 1980s sound which they were known for and change up the sound in a radical way.  With the hit singles they had, they’d made their money, now it was time for something more “artistic”.  In retrospect, that was a damn good idea because the two albums that came before sound like the time from which they sprung.  Not so The Seeds of Love.  It has a more timeless quality.  Orzabal said they wanted to get away from that Eighties sound and come back with something surprising and shocking.  Their Beatles influence kicked in, and that of Little Feat and others.  They looked back at the history of rock and roll and wanted to compete with that instead of their contemporaries.  They wanted to recreate the orchestral atmosphere that was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, because not many people have been able to do it, but when they do it’s pretty exciting.  I think they pulled it off.  The drum machines and sequencers were replaced by real drums and humans playing them, there are real strings [not synthesized strings], you’ll hear a Hammond B-3 organ here and there, and better still there are longer songs that are more free-form.  TFF brought in a third voice, a female voice, that of a singer they found in Kansas City.  Her name is Oleta Adams.  On the more “soulful” songs, that’s where she comes to the fore. 

The Seeds of Love is definitely NOT for those with short attention spans.  The album took a long time and a lot of money to make.  The Beatles weren’t the same after they finished Sgt. Pepper, and The Seeds of Love had a similar effect on TFF.  Since the album took such a long time to make [roughly three years], Orzabal and Smith had a falling out.  Also, Smith and his first wife divorced.  Plus, they discovered their manager was misappropriating band funds, and they argued over whether to keep him or fire him [they eventually fired him and took him to court].  After the tour for the album, Orzabal and Smith “divorced”.  They had been playing in bands together since they were teenagers, they were nearly thirty, and each wanted to seek his own path [sound familiar?].  Despite the album being a product of the 1980s, The Seeds of Love has aged well.  Tony’s rating – 4.5.

The Seeds of Love didn’t get a proper follow-up for fifteen years.  When Curt Smith left, Roland Orzabal kept the Tears for Fears name and made records that were TFF records in name only.  They didn’t sound like TFF records.  They were Roland Orzabal records.  He found a new musical partner named Alan Griffiths.  The two records they made together [Elemental (1993) and Raoul and the Kings of Spain (1995)] were okay.  There’s good music to be found on those records.  They’re just different and don’t sound like TFF.  Alan Griffiths is a good musician, but Curt Smith is a far better singer.  That counts for a lot.  If you take the good songs from each album you can make one good album.  Tony’s rating [for this period] – 2.5.  After Raoul and the Kings of Spain, TFF released an odds and sods kind of thing that collected the B-sides of their singles onto their own album called Saturnine Martial & Lunatic [1996].  After that album’s release, Tears for Fears quietly dropped off the musical map.

After fifteen years apart, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith reconnected.  Despite all the time they were apart, they still had some non-musical business things that kept them tied together.  One day while conducting business, Orzabal emailed Smith [he didn’t have his phone number].  They exchanged emails, then they talked.  According to Orzabal “the angst had gone…we had different lives.”  They had grown separately from when they were growing up as kids in Bath.  Once they reconnected as friends, they wondered whether they would be able to make any music that had any commercial viability.  The two joked amongst themselves that they got together to create an album that has a “happy ending”.  Curt Smith went so far as to say that if their career and their break-up after The Seeds of Love was a Hollywood movie, they would have to re-shoot the ending to give the movie a happy ending.  What came next was called Everybody Loves a Happy Ending [2004].

If The Seeds of Love was Tears for Fears’ “Sgt. Pepper”, then Everybody Loves a Happy Ending is their Magical Mystery Tour.  Magical Mystery Tour was not an exact musical clone of Sgt. Pepper, but it had the same “peace, love and hippy shit” vibe to it.  Everybody Loves a Happy Ending was the perfect follow-up to The Seeds of Love that Elemental was not.  Both albums have the same vibe to them such that I like hearing them back-to-back [mostly], as you’ll see on my playlist.  While the Beatles connection on The Seeds of Love is Sowing the Seeds of Love, Who Killed Tangerine serves the same purpose on Everybody Loves a Happy Ending.  It has the same drum pattern [almost exactly] as that on Come Together, and if you listen closely right before the chorus [repeated a lot like Hey Jude] you can hear an orchestral sample from A Day in the Life.  One song doesn’t make for an album.  This one is packed with good, melodic music.  Curt Smith contributes more to a TFF album since Songs from the Big Chair.  In his time away from Tears for Fears, he gained a new musical partner - Charlton Pettus.  Pettus, Orzabal and Smith wrote the whole album.  Tony’s rating – 4.

Tears for Fears are reportedly recording another album.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  Thirty-four years have passed since Songs from the Big Chair, and I like their music more today than when it was first released.  Here’s my suggested playlist:   

1.      Sowing the Seeds of Love [The Seeds of Love, 1989] *

2.      Who Killed Tangerine? [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004] *

3.      Raoul and the Kings of Spain [Raoul and the Kings of Spain, 1995] *

4.      Head Over Heels [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985] * -> Tony’s favorite TFF song

5.      Everybody Wants To Rule the World [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985] *

6.      Shout [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985] *

7.      Mad World [The Hurting, 1983] *

8.      Pale Shelter [The Hurting, 1983] *

9.      Bad Man's Song [The Seeds of Love, 1989]

10.  Advice for the Young and Heart [The Seeds of Love, 1989] *

11.  Swords and Knife [The Seeds of Love, 1989]

12.  Year of the Knife [The Seeds of Love, 1989]

13.  Famous Last Words [The Seeds of Love, 1989]

14.  Tears Roll Down [Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92), 1992] *

15.  Everybody Loves a Happy Ending [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004]

16.  Closest Thing to Heaven [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004] *

17.  The Devil [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004]

18.  Secret World [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004] *

19.  Quiet Ones [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004]

20.  Killing With Kindness [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004]

21.  Ladybird [Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, 2004]

22.  Floating Down The River (Once Again) [Secret World Live in Paris, 2006] *

23.  Porn Star [Curt Smith - Deceptively Heavy, 2013]

24.  I Love You But I'm Lost [Rule the World: The Greatest Hits, 2017]

25.  Ideas As Opiates [The Hurting, 1983]

26.  Watch Me Bleed [The Hurting, 1983]

27.  The Prisoner [The Hurting, 1983]

28.  The Working Hour [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985]

29.  Broken [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985]

30.  Head Over Heels / Broken [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985] – this isn’t a typo; I have both the single and the album tracks listed.

31.  Listen [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985]

32.  Broken Revisited [Songs from the Big Chair, 1985 (Deluxe)]

33.  Elemental [Elemental, 1993] *

34.  Cold [Elemental, 1993] *

35.  Break It Down Again [Elemental, 1993] *

36.  New Star [Saturnine Martial & Lunatic, 1996] *

37.  Don't Drink the Water [Raoul and the Kings of Spain, 1995]

38.  Creep [Live] [Raoul and the Kings of Spain, 1995 (reissue)] – this isn’t a typo either; they did a good job on the Radiohead song.

*Available on compilation Gold [2006]

If complete albums are your thing, buy Songs from the Big Chair, The Seeds of Love, and Everybody Loves a Happy Ending.  If you want just the hits, the compilation Gold [2006] is a “can’t miss”.  You can cherry-pick the rest of the songs from the other albums.

The 1980s - Midnight Oil

If there’s something to protest, Midnight Oil is your band.  Whether it be reparations for indigenous Australian peoples, the environment, nuclear disarmament, uranium mining, climate change, increased funding for public education, saving the whales, mining safety – pick your favorite issue and Midnight Oil will show up and sing for their supper.  Singer Peter Garrett is a politician and an activist.  He left Midnight Oil in 2002 for a solo career – in politics.  He was an Australian Member of Parliament for the Australian Labor Party.  He served in two Labor Party governments as a minister.   He served on Greenpeace’s international board for two years, and has participated in various Australian community and cultural organizations.  Before serving in elective office he was a critic of US military and foreign policies, which moderated once he became part of the Establishment.  Garrett has since left politics. 

Though they haven’t created new music since 2002, Garrett returned to Midnight Oil to resume live shows. Midnight Oil always has been and continues to be his soapbox.  Their politics are up front, in your face, and they are unapologetic for that.  They are for Australia what The Clash was for England.  AllMusic critic William Ruhlmann wrote that “it's hard to dance when you're being lectured to.”  Given that, their music is still compelling listening.  Midnight Oil was definitely not about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  They had [and continue to have] things to say, and they’re not shy about saying them.  Radio-friendly pop hits their songs are not.  But, the songs are good….really good.  I found a quote from Jim Moginie [guitars, keyboards, and songwriting] about Midnight Oil’s appeal:  “We’ve always been a political band, but the bottom line is that the songs have to be good. You can’t stand up there playing a G chord for half an hour and saying how the whole world’s fucked up, you have to bring people in through hooks.”

The first time I became aware of Midnight Oil was not from something I heard, but rather something I saw.  In 1984 they released an album called Red Sails in the Sunset.  The cover showed a hypothetical view of Sydney and Sydney Harbor after a nuclear attack [it was the Cold War, after all].  This wasn’t your typical album cover, and it was attention-grabbing.  The first time I heard them was a song called Beds Are Burning [from 1987’s Diesel and Dust].  This was Midnight Oil’s clarion call for reparations for Aborigines.  This was my gateway drug to Midnight Oil.  When I heard who it was I put two and two together and thought “oh yeah, those are the guys who nuked Sydney”.  Peter Garrett as the front man is someone you’ll never forget once you’ve seen him.  He’s 6’6” and is bald as Mr. Clean.  Midnight Oil’s music is music for resistance.  U2 like to think their music is such, but they reinvented themselves as rock stars beginning with Achtung Baby and haven’t looked back [much].  The Clash broke up long ago, and Joe Strummer is still dead. If you’re a social justice warrior, Midnight Oil is the band for you.

The first two albums [Midnight Oil (1978) and Head Injuries (1979)] find our Aussie heroes trying to find their way, as would any band with a new recording contract.  The politics hadn’t really kicked in.  They were trying anything to see if any music would stick.  There’s punk rock bluster, attempts at ska, Bowie-style glam, love songs, and guitar heroics.  I put those songs at the end of my playlist because they’re kind of a sore thumb compared to the rest of the songs, but they’re good taken on their own merits. Places Without A Postcard [1981] saw them paired with producer Glyn Johns.  The two didn’t really mix, but the formula emerged – relentlessly political lyrics with head-banging rock.  The band gelled in 1982 with 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982].  The medium and the message became a good match for these guys.  For my money, the albums to get are: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]; Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]; Diesel and Dust [1987]; Blue Sky Mining [1990]; Earth and Sun and Moon [1993].  You can’t go wrong with any of these.  You can cherry-pick songs from the other albums, but these are the ones that hold up as coherent statements.  The songs are great.  These albums are when Midnight Oil hit their protest-music stride.  Here’s the caveat emptor - sometimes listening to Midnight Oil is like watching British movies – sometimes you need the subtitles on [or in this case, the lyric sheets] in order to understand them. 

1.      When the Generals Talk – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

2.      Best of Both Worlds - Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

3.      Feeding Frenzy – Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

4.      My Country - Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

5.      Renaissance Man - Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

6.      Truganini - Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

7.      Drums of Heaven - Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

8.      Beds Are Burning - Diesel and Dust [1987]

9.      The Dead Heart - Diesel and Dust [1987]

10.  Sell My Soul - Diesel and Dust [1987]

11.  Blue Sky Mine – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

12.  Stars of Warburton – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

13.  Bedlam Bridge – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

14.  King of the Mountain – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

15.  Minutes to Midnight – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

16.  Jimmy Sharman’s Boxers – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

17.  Kosciusko – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

18.  Bells and Horns in the Back of Beyond – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

19.  Shipyards of New Zealand – Red Sails in the Sunset [1984]

20.  Only the Strong - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

21.  Scream in Blue - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

22.  Short Memory - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

23.  Power and the Passion - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

24.  Armistice Day - Place Without a Postcard [1981]

25.  Lucky Country - Place Without a Postcard [1981]

26.  Gunbarrel Highway - Diesel and Dust [1987]

27.  Redneck Wonderland - Redneck Wonderland [1998]

28.  In the Valley – Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

29.  Now or Neverland – Earth and Sun and Moon [1993]

30.  River Runs Red – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

31.  Shakers and Movers – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

32.  Antarctica – Blue Sky Mining [1990]

33.  Tone Poem – Capricornia [2002]

34.  Dreamworld - Diesel and Dust [1987]

35.  Outside World - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

36.  Read About It - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

37.  Somebody's Trying to Tell Me Something - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 [1982]

38.  Run By Night - Midnight Oil [1978]

39.  Nothing Lost – Nothing Gained - Midnight Oil [1978]

40.  Cold Cold Change - Head Injuries [1979]

41.  Stand In Line - Head Injuries [1979]

42.  Back on the Borderline - Head Injuries [1979]

43.  No Reaction - Head Injuries [1979]

The 1980s - The Pretenders

I saw the Pretenders at Red Rocks in the summer of 1984.  They were supporting their album Learning to Crawl.  By this time, there were two new guys in the band – Robbie McIntosh [guitar] and Malcolm Foster [bass].  They were good, almost great.  They played almost every song I wanted to hear.  It was a good mix between “what came before” and what was new at the time.  They even played something they had not released [yet].  That was a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Room Full of Mirrors.  I’ll give props to anybody who covers Hendrix well, and the Pretenders didn’t disappoint. 

Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon were half of “what came before”.  For those unfamiliar with the tale, in the summer of 1982 Chrissie Hynde, drummer Martin Chambers and Scott had a band meeting to fire Pete Farndon.  Farndon had a serious drug problem, which made him difficult to work with.  Two days after they fired Pete Farndon, Scott died from heart failure.  He overdosed on cocaine.  Farndon himself died ten months later.  He drowned in his bathtub after overdosing on heroin.

The time between the band’s formation in 1978 and the loss of two founding members in 1982, the Pretenders recorded two albums and one EP.  These albums [Pretenders, Extended Play, and Pretenders II] were brash and harder than most contemporary rock records, which blended sounds of 1970s rock and roll [think “Rolling Stones”], New Wave, and Punk that also had plenty of melody.  Chrissie Hynde may not look sexy [she isn’t ugly either by a long shot], but she sounds sexy. She’s an excellent songwriter who also has an affinity for the Kinks.  Her rhythm guitar playing and the lead playing of James Honeyman-Scott made for an excellent pairing. 

Chris Thomas produced those records with the original band, and is crucial to the Pretenders’ story.  His first foray into record production came when George Martin threw him into the deep end during sessions for the Beatles’ White Album.  He left Thomas a note - "Dear Chris, Hope you had a nice holiday. I'm off on mine now. Make yourself available to The Beatles. Neil and Mal know you're coming down."  After the White Album, Thomas produced Procol Harum, Roxy Music, Badfinger, and the Sex Pistols and mixed Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon.  He met Chrissie Hynde before the Pretenders formed.  She told him she wanted to be a singer and asked for his help.  His advice to her was that singing was not enough – she needed to get a band and take up songwriting.  She obviously took his advice.

Their first single was a Kinks cover, Stop Your Sobbing [produced by Nick Lowe].  It was the strength of the single [and seeing them perform live] which convinced Thomas to produce the first album.  Pretenders is one of the better debut albums one would hear from anybody [see my playlist below for song titles].  Under Thomas’ direction, the songs are focused and inspiring.  His production brings the band a direction and a hard edge that would be missing from records not involving him.  Extended Play appeared the next year with two songs left over from Pretenders that didn’t make the album.  It also had two songs for the next album [Message of Love and Talk of the Town] and a live version of Precious.  Oddly enough, one of those songs [Cuban Slide] is my favorite Pretenders song.  Pretenders II was a bit of a letdown from the first album.  To be fair, the first album set the bar incredibly high.  The songs don’t rock as hard, and some of the songs sound like filler.  However, the songs that aren’t filler equal the standard set by those from the first album.  It was these collections of songs from the original band on which the Pretenders’ reputation is built.  One can only wonder how the rest of the Pretenders’ music would turn out had James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon stayed away from hard drugs.  Tony’s rating for this period [on a scale of 0 (must avoid) to 5 (classic)] – 4.9. 

Two months after Scott’s death the two remaining Pretenders [Hynde and Chambers] began recording a memorial to Scott.  With the help of guitarist Billy Bremner [Rockpile], guitarist Robbie McIntosh, and bassist Tony Butler [Big Country].  This song became Back on the Chain Gang.  Robbie McIntosh was a friend of Scott’s.  The same day they fired Pete Farndon, Scott said he wanted to bring McIntosh into the band.  The B-side of Back on the Chain Gang was My City Was Gone [which I think is a better song].  In addition to the task of replacing two founding members, Chrissie Hynde was three-months pregnant at the time.  It was going to take a while to rebuild the Pretenders.

Learning to Crawl showed a band that came back from the dead.  It too was produced by Chris Thomas, whose production was as clear and crystalline as always, but the band’s sound changed.  How could it not?  Musicians simply don’t “plug and play” from one band to another and expect to sound like the musicians they replace. The music was not as aggressive as it was on the first three releases.  The punk fury that fueled the first release was replaced by more mature melodicism.  That being said, the opening cut [Middle of the Road] is just as raucous as anything that came before.  Chrissie Hynde’s songs were, in a word, remarkable.  They were more mature, as death of close friends and new motherhood were bound to change Chrissie’s outlook.  The first clue to this maturity comes at the end of Middle of the Road – “I’m not the cat I used to be/I got a kid I’m 33, baby…” Robbie McIntosh’s playing is leaner and more muscular than that of James Honeyman-Scott, but his style suited the new songs.  Malcolm Foster was a very solid and dependable replacement for Pete Farndon.  His teaming with Martin Chambers made them a formidable rhythm section.  2000 Miles was written as another tribute to James Honeyman-Scott, but since it mentions ‘Christmastime’ it’s been known as a Christmas song since its release.  The only song on the album I don’t like is the one Chrissie Hynde didn’t write - Thin Line Between Love and Hate.  I do remember hearing this one at Red Rocks.  It’s a “bathroom break” song.  My favorite song from Learning to Crawl?  That would be Thumbelina, with its old-fashioned chugging train-song rhythm. Tony’s rating - 4.5. 

Get Close followed in 1986.  There were three different producers for this one, none of them named Chris Thomas.  Chrissie Hynde was the only Pretender on the front cover.  This is “truth in advertising”.  The band that made Learning to Crawl can be found on one only song – Room Full of Mirrors.  Shortly thereafter, Martin Chambers was told his services were no longer required.  Chrissie thought his playing wasn’t good.  He attributed his playing to apathy resulting from the inability to cope with the deaths of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon.  When Chambers was canned, Malcolm Foster had a “fuck this shit” moment and followed Chambers out of the band.  With Robbie McIntosh the only other Pretender, he and Hynde recorded the remainder of Get Close with session players.  Some of the songs are good [see below], but others are a mess.  There was a power ballad [ick!] and some ‘funk’ tunes [doubleplusick!].  I’m sorry – white girls from Akron may be brash and ballsy with plenty of attitude, but funky they are not.  What is telling about Get Close is that the outtakes rock harder than the tunes that made the album.  After the tour for this album was done in 1987, so was Robbie McIntosh – he’d had enough.  He later went on to work for Paul McCartney (1989-93).  Tony’s rating – 2.5.

In 1972 Traffic recorded a Steve Winwood song called (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired.  That phrase sums up the Pretenders’ fifth album, Packed [1990]. This was a Pretenders album in name only, and has “contractual obligation” written all over it.  I’m not sure what this album was packed with, but quality music was not.  The tunes are uninspiring, the production is bland.  I never thought I’d say this about an album involving Chrissie Hynde, but Packed is just plain boring.  Save your money - avoid at all costs.  Tony’s rating – 0.

Four years elapsed between the release of Packed and its follow-up, Last of the Independents.  Chris Thomas was back for this one, and the difference between this and Packed shows. This album and the two that followed it, ¡Viva El Amor! (1999) and Loose Screw (2002) featured a stable line-up – Chrissie Hynde, Adam Seymour [guitar], Andy Hobson [bass], and the return of Martin Chambers.  Critics labeled each of these albums as “the best since Learning to Crawl”.  Maybe if you take all the good songs from all three albums and make your own album that might be true.  That’s not to say that these are bad albums.  On the contrary – they’re pretty good.  Learning to Crawl had set the bar very high.   These albums proved what Chris Thomas told Chrissie Hynde in the early days about what she needed – good original songs and a real band to play them.  Tony’s rating for this period – 3.5.

The albums that followed Loose Screw have a low-fi aesthetic.  To these ears they sound like they could’ve been recorded in someone’s garage in a couple of days.  The low-fi aesthetic works well for some acts.  Their music would be much different without it [Tom Waits, Los Lobos, and bluesmen from north Mississippi come to mind].  The Pretenders – not so much.  Break Up the Concrete finds the Pretenders without Martin Chambers.  However, he toured to support the album.  Apparently he didn’t want to play on it, but was more than happy to do the road work.  Alone is another Pretenders album in name only.  Chrissie Hynde is the sole Pretender on the record, which she did with Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys and a bunch a session guys.  The album title is appropriate. Tony’s rating for this period – 2.

In 2014, Chrissie Hynde finally put out an album under her own name after 35 years of making records – Stockholm.  I have one song on my playlist from that album - Down the Wrong Way.  It might have been a real good Pretenders B-side, but I can sum up in two words why I included it – Neil Young.  Happily, the sexy voice was/is still intact.

When the Pretenders were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Chrissie Hynde addressed the criticism that the Pretenders today is nothing but a tribute band.  Her response was that they pay tribute to James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon each and every night they play.  Touché.  That lady from Akron is pretty clever…

Here’s my Pretenders playlist:

1.      Room Full of Mirrors [Get Close, 1986]

2.      World Within Worlds [Get Close (Bonus track), 1986]

3.      Down the Wrong Way [Chrissie Hynde – Stockholm, 2014]

4.      Cuban Slide [Extended Play, 1981] à Tony’s favorite Pretenders song

5.      Porcelain [Extended Play, 1981]

6.      Birds of Paradise [Pretenders II, 1981]

7.      Mystery Achievement [Pretenders, 1980]

8.      Message of Love [Pretenders II, 1981]

9.      Talk of the Town [Pretenders II, 1981]

10.  The English Roses [Pretenders II, 1981]

11.  Jealous Dogs [Pretenders II, 1981]

12.  Day After Day [Pretenders II, 1981]

13.  Waste Not Want Not [Pretenders II, 1981]

14.  I Go To Sleep [Pretenders II, 1981]

15.  Bad Boys Get Spanked [Pretenders II, 1981]

16.  The Adultress [Pretenders II, 1981]

17.  Brass in Pocket [Pretenders, 1980]

18.  The Wait [Pretenders, 1980]

19.  Space Invader (Instrumental) [Pretenders, 1980]

20.  Private Life [Pretenders, 1980]

21.  Kid [Pretenders, 1980]

22.  Stop Your Sobbing [Pretenders, 1980]

23.  Tattooed Love Boys [Pretenders, 1980]

24.  Up the Neck [Pretenders, 1980]

25.  The Phone Call [Pretenders, 1980]

26.  Precious [Pretenders, 1980]

27.  Middle of the Road [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

28.  When I Change My Life [Get Close, 1986]

29.  Light of the Moon [Get Close, 1986]

30.  Back on the Chain Gang [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

31.  Time the Avenger [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

32.  Show Me [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

33.  Thumbelina [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

34.  My City Was Gone [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

35.  2000 Miles [Learning to Crawl, 1984]

36.  Hold a Candle to This [Get Close (Bonus track), 1986]

37.  Hollywood Perfume [Last of the Independents, 1994]

38.  Night in My Veins [Last of the Independents, 1994]

39.  Money Talk [Last of the Independents, 1994]

40.  I’m a Mother [Last of the Independents, 1994]

41.  Rebel Rock Me [Last of the Independents, 1994]

42.  Popstar [¡Viva El Amor!, 1999]

43.  Dragway [¡Viva El Amor!, 1999]

44.  Baby’s Breath [¡Viva El Amor!, 1999]

45.  Legalize Me [¡Viva El Amor!, 1999]

46.  Biker [¡Viva El Amor!, 1999]

47.  Lie To Me [Loose Screw, 2002]

48.  Fools Must Die [Loose Screw, 2002]

49.  Walk Like a Panther [Loose Screw, 2002]

50.  Boots of Chinese Plastic [Break Up the Concrete, 2008]

51.  Break Up the Concrete [Break Up the Concrete, 2008]

52.  Alone [Alone, 2016]