Featuring Chrissie Hynde, from Ohio, and a backup group of British musicians, this band's 1979 release and follow-up album, "Pretenders II" were seminal works in the development of the so-called "punk" and "new wave" music trends of the early eighties. Hynde's "in your face" yet sophisticated sexuality was a ground-breaking event in the pop music scene, and her success paved the way for an entire generation of sexually forward, tough-minded female artists such as Suzy Quattro and Joan Jett. Hynde delivered blistering, sexually charged lyrics in songs like "Tattooed Love Boys", describing her involvement with the gay SM scene, with what at the time was a shocking ferocity, but at the same time undeniable artistic validity. Lyrics like these: "I shot my mout off and you showed me what that hole was for ... Well those love boys have got you where I used to lay - well, ha, ha, too bad. You know what they say - stop snivelin', you're gonna make some plastic surgeon a rich man.", took rock audiences to places they had never been before. Even artists on the extreme fringes of the scene, like Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics, owed their acceptance in part to the trail blazed by Hynde. However, none of the artists that followed in her footsteps, although many had higher shock value, ever matched the musical quality and lyrical sophistication of her first two albums.
After losing two of the original band members to drug-related deaths (Chris Farndon, bassist and James Honeyman-Scott, guitarist), the band never regained its original intensity and edgy quality, although a number of releases followed. Clearly, Hynde's relationship with Ray Davies (leader of the sixties British Invasion band, The Kinks) and ensuing motherhood also had something to do with the change in the band's persona. Hynde became increasingly focused on political activism, vocally supporting environmental movementand vegetarianism. Her social and political views were woven into more than one of the band's successful releases.
In the song "Ohio" Hynde expressed dismay at the devastation caused by industrial pollution and rampant commercial development in her home state. "Middle of the Road", a song that attempted to recapture some of the band's earlier hard-edged sound, dealt with, among other things, the indifference of wealthy nations to the plight of the world's poor and the apathy of the wealthy bourgeoisie, as in the lyric, "When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the babies just come with the scenery." Ironically, she also expressed her annoyance about the rigors of celebrity life just as her own celebrity was beginning to fade for good: "I can't get from the cab to the curb without some little jerk on my back".
There was a long hiatus in activity for Hynde from 1986 to 1994, when she released "Last of the Independents" with very limited success. Touring behind the album with original drummer Martin Chambers in small venues around the US, she was given to interrupting shows with scathing diatribes on her favorite pet causes, sometimes screaming insults at the audience, to the obvious chagrin of bandmates on-stage. "All you hamburger-eating motherfuckers are gonna die!", was the peak of one such rant, delivered in front of a Boston audience in 1995 and reported unfavorably in the local music reviews.
One more release, "Viva El Amor", in 1999, also failed to recapture the sound or the audience recognition of the band's glory days. Little has been heard from Hynde since.
