Pretenders - Something to believe in (cover)

Tentang Pretenders

The Pretenders were one of the seminal bands of the second British Invasion, rising out of London in 1979 with a forceful, self-titled first album. Their melodic but hard-charging sound suggested a union of punk and New Wave approaches. Moreover, being older and more seasoned than their punk peers, they drew inspiration from bands of the first British Invasion, including the Kinks and the Who, as well American soul music. Leader Chrissie Hynde was, in fact, an American expatriate who grew up in Akron, Ohio, and moved to London in the hope of finding her way into the music business. It took several years to put a band together, but once guitarist/singer Hynde assembled the definitive Pretenders lineup - guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers, all from rustic Hereford - they took off almost instantly. Throughout their volatile history, which has included the drug-related deaths of two founding members, the Pretenders have remained a vehicle for Hynde’s songs and breathy, dark-timbered alto. From the outset the Pretenders were an explosive combination of precision and flamboyance. The group mastered the blistering tempos and brute force of punk, but Hynde’s writing took them other places as well. Her songs possessed the melodic sheen of well-turned pop yet employed unconventional time signatures (one writer referred to her "treacherously eccentric meters") and at times blunt, psychosexual lyrics. As one of the first women to front a popular rock band - not only as the singer but also main songwriter and bandleader - she presented a hard, unsentimental image that was far removed from the likes of Linda Ronstadt or Stevie Nicks. She seemed tough, and her songs - including "Tattooed Love Boys", "Up the Neck" and "The Phone Call" - co…