Pretenders- TALK OF THE TOWN

# 2001 Pretenders - TALK OF THE TOWN

                                               Pretenders, Sire Records, 1980

                GLOBAL CHART ACHIEVEMENTS:
                                # 8 in the UK

          recurrent airplay favorite at MATT RADIO

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The Pretenders are a MATT RADIO core artist.

Chrissie Hynde (born in Akron, Ohio in 1951) came to England to seek her fortune in 1973. After meeting with New Musical Express writer and future boyfriend Nick Kent, she joined the paper and gained entrance into the world of rock.

During her pre-Pretenders days she worked at Malcolm McLaren's shop, "Sex," played with Chris Spedding in France, and moved back to America, where she formed a band called Jack Rabbit. She returned to punk-era London in 1976, forming the short-lived Berk Brothers and achieving a brief period of tabloid notoriety as part of the Mo Murderers, a non-existent band set up as a publicity stunt by the notorious punk icon Steve Strange.

By the time she assembled the Pretenders in 1978, Hynde had gained a great deal of experience. The classic Pretenders line-up comprised Pete Farndon ( bass), James Honeyman-Scott ( guitar), and Martin Chambers (drums, who replaced Gerry Mackleduff). They were signed to Dave Hill's Real Records, which was soon co-opted by Sire Records. Their debut single was a Nick Lowe-produced cover version of the Kinks' "Stop Your Sobbing." It scraped into the UK Top 40 in February 1979, having received critical praise and much interest. "Kid" and the superb "Brass In Pocket" followed. The latter was accompanied by a black-and-white video with Hynde portraying a waitress and reached the Number One position in the UK in November. It was their chart-topping debut album that eventually put them on the road to becoming one of the decade's most important bands. Pretenders, a tour de force of articulate pop, remains arguably their finest work. In addition to their previous singles, the album included the reggae-styled "Private Life" (later recorded by Grace Jones), the frenetic "Precious," the Byrds-like "Talk Of The Town" (a UK Top 10 single), and the beautiful ballad "Lovers Of Today."

source: VH-1.com