Hynde Sight

The Pretenders

by M.J. Fine

Pretenders Learning to Crawl (Sire, 1984)

Pretenders Our Break Up the Concrete (Shangrila, 2008)

For the Pretenders' latest reboot — their ninth studio album and at least their sixth major lineup change — alpha female Chrissie Hynde dismissed the band's longest-serving roster and ditched the lame reggae-lite of their last record, 2002's Loose Screw. With a whole new group of boys to play with — most notably session drummer Jim Keltner and pedal-steel guitarist Eric Heywood — the 57-year-old Hynde's as lusty as she ever was. Break Up the Concrete brims with rootsy, deep-throated tributes to troubled guys ("The Nothing Maker," "Almost Perfect"), pretty young things ("Don't Cut Your Hair," "You Didn't Have To") and brothers in arms ("The Last Ride"). The singer-guitarist hasn't lost any of her appeal, but when she strays from her lyrical strengths and lets Keltner ride that Bo Diddley beat too long, things get silly. "Boots of Chinese Plastic" stumbles over Hynde's simplified spirituality, and the title track, an unnecessary rewrite of "My City Was Gone," suffers from uneven writing that even her impossibly cool delivery can't save.

Learning to Crawl was the first time Hynde ran with a different crowd, but back then she didn't have much of a choice. Founding guitarist James Honeyman Scott and bassist Pete Farndon both died of drug overdoses after Pretenders II, leaving Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers to regroup. As it turned out, the band's first comeback would be their highest-charting record, place five songs in Billboard's Top 11, and be certified platinum less than three months after its release. Twenty-five Christmases later, the wistful "2000 Miles," which didn't even chart in the U.S., would be a staple of radio stations' seasonal playlists.

What Midwestern-raised, London-dwelling white chick would dare compare her romantic woes to being "Back on the Chain Gang" or presume she had the soul to pull off The Persuaders' "Thin Line Between Love and Hate"? Who would conjure "Thumbelina" as a rockabilly lullaby to a little girl being spirited away from her dad? Or transform domestic rage and resentment into "Watching the Clothes" and "Middle of the Road?"Chrissie Hynde, that's who. Anyone else is a pretender.

(m_fine@citypaper.net)

Chrissie Hynde plays the Electric Factory on Friday.