The Pretenders

In 1980 I was a senior in high school.  I was not a very successful one, because in 1981 I was also a senior in high school.  This isn't so much because I'm a stupid person (that's certainly open for debate), but because I never wanted to miss anything.  Except school.  I didn't care if I missed that because every day was exactly the same in there.  Plus, I did most of it in the 70's and no one ever really seemed to care if I went or not.  No one called my parents or anything, so I figured I was good.  Until the end of 1980 when I found out I wasn't graduating (I knew, I just didn't think it would happen to me).  So it took two guys to figure out a way to get me a diploma, Ron Schuff and Tom Madzy.  Both of these teachers have passed on (proof that if god exists, he doesn't love us), but they are the two adults that did the most (besides Gene Zacharyasz and my dad) to make sure that when the time came, I'd be able to live in a house and eat food.  So that's a long way of me saying that I was a fuckup, and I know that.  It also gives you a good idea of where my head was at in 1980.  I know I laughed a lot.  I laughed a lot and I rocked my ass off!

The Pretenders first album is one of the albums I blasted almost continuously since the day I got it.  WMMS and M105 played it like it was a new Stones album because Chrissie Hynde was from Akron, which is Cleveland enough for our local media.  I liked them because they were more Punk than New Wave, but the songs just all stuck in your head and the band was just hot as hell!  It was the rare album that could have a single like Brass In Pocket and then Tattooed Love Boys on the next side seemed really eclectic to me back then.  I liked all the songs on here lyrically because Chrissie seemed like she was singing from a perspective that 18 year old me really understood.  What's nice is that old man me gets it, too.

Precious kicks the record off in fine form, and Cleveland radio played the hell out of it, probably because of all the mentions about Cleveland places, streets and people.  I mean, the rest of the world must have wondered what the hell Howard the Duck and Mr. Stress both stayed, trapped in a world that they never made, but around here we all saw The Mr. Stress Blues Band at the Euclid Tavern dozens of times in our lives, and we all knew Howard the Duck lived here, even if we didn't read the incredibly weird comic.  I loved knowing all the touchpoints in a song I was listening to on the radio.  Plus, Precious doesn't leave a lot to interpretation.  Chrissie says what she means to say, and James Honeyman-Scott just shreds his guitar all over and for once it sounded to me like a band that obviously owed a lot to Punk had a guy that could play anything on a guitar that any of the big name Classic Rockers could.  He just tore it up on almost every song, and even made the dance floor friendly Mystery Achievement easily one of my favorites on the record because of his great solo's.  The dude could flat out play, and it's a pity he's gone.

Pete Farndon, the bass player is dead, too.  I thought he was a good bass player, but he looked cooler than anyone around.  It's important for a Rock band to have a good Look, and The Pretenders definitely had that.  The white album cover with the guys in black and Chrissie in red.  Talk about a good Look, Chrissie most certainly had that, and I think I stared at the back cover where she's adjusting the cuff on Pete's pant leg by his shoe just always intrigued the hell out of me.  I don't know why.  I can still look at that picture for a long time.

I know Nick Lowe produced Stop Your Sobbing but then split because he didn't think The Pretenders were really going anywhere.  I like Nick a lot, but I don't know what the hell he was thinking on that one.  If anything, Stop Your Sobbing is the flattest sounding song on the record anyway, so I think it's obvious that Chris Thomas understood what the band was doing more than Nick did.  He got a pretty fat sound out of this record, especially since it really has more on each side than it should for optimum sound.  But they sounded all at once brand new and like they were just one of the great bands from back then.  They sounded like they belonged on the radio everywhere, and they looked like it, too.

I've still got my original.  The paper sleeve has some splits and I use another sleeve, but saved that one because I like the inner sleeve picture a lot.  The one with the kid playing with the robot.  My record is nice and flat and still sounds real good after all these years.  Definitely one of my favorite records ever.