today we have a track from most definitely one of the greatest debut albums of all-time, embodying equal parts of punk, ska and rock. New Wave may have been born a few years earlier but Chrissie Hynde and company brought it to the next level with their self-titled debut in 1980. James Honeyman-Scott‘s guitar talents are everywhere, the same is true for Chrissie Hynde’s vocal talents.
So it’s not too astonishing that all of the three tracks the record company chose to be singles turned out to become pretty successful – some 44 years later you still hear them on daytime radio here and there. I leave it up to you to decide whether this is an honour or not, but come on, they are all pretty neat: ‘Brass In Pocket’, ‘Kid’, ‘Stop Your Sobbing’ … nothing wrong with them, right?
‘But hold on’, I can hear you shout, ‘if the above were all of the three singles that were released, where does the one below come from?!’ Well, this is because Real Records licensed Hispavox in Spain to put ‘Precious’ out as a single, backed by ‘Stop Your Sobbing’ – in this form it wasn’t available anywhere else but in Spain. Well, that’s not entirely correct, ‘cos they also put it out as a single in The Netherlands, but with ‘The Phone Call’ as the B-Side.
And as far as I’m concerned, this was a very big mistake! I can understand that at the end of the day it’s all about money, and I also understand that a tune as raucous as ‘Precious’ may not really be as consumer-friendly as ‘Brass In Pocket’, ‘Kid’, or ‘Stop Your Sobbing’ – but hey, we are talking 1980 here, and punk was not entirely dead everywhere, so Real Records might have made a pretty penny when having had the guts to release this single Europe-wide!
I wish I could understand the thoughts of the record company decision-makers back then for not doing so: „Oh, those Spanish, they are all brutally hardcore, must be with this constant heat – they will buy this …and those Dutch, they have fallen off the dyke too often anyway, so they’ll buy it as well for sure!“.
Either way, me, I still listen to The Pretenders sometimes, also to their later albums, but whenever I put the debut album on, the first track puts a big smile on my face … the same smile that I produce when listening to the first track of The Clash‘s debut album!
And this, friends, this is an honour, at least in my little world!
A slight deviation from the norm in that this instalment also happens to cover a few days from October 1979, with the first of the charts being recalled with much fondness today being that of 27 October – 3 November. The first glance is enough to give anyone with good taste a bit of the dry boak as the Top 3 places really are easy listening hell with Lena Martell, Dr. Hook and Sad Cafe stinking the place out. Thankfully, one of the year’s top songs did make its entry into the charts this week, coming in at #29.
mp3: The Jam – The Eton Rifles (7″ version)
The band’s third chart hit of 1979 following on from When You’re Young and Strange Town, both of which had been Top 20. The Eton Rifles would take The Jam to the giddy heights of #3 in mid-November, confirmation that, for a certain age-group across Britain, they were becoming the biggest and most important band of their time.
Moving quickly on to the chart of 4-10 November, and it was still AOR hell across much of the Top 40. I had to go a long way down to find something decent enough that was new this week:-
mp3: Madness – One Step Beyond
So, it’s now coming up for 45 years since those of us of a certain age, not only fell head-over heels for The Jam, but we all did the Chas Smash dance for the first time. The Prince had been great fun to listen and dance to, but the band’s second 45 was truly something else. In at #51, it would go on to enjoy a 14-week stay in the Top 75, not taking its leave until the end of February 1980. The first Top of The Pop appearance for this one was memorable…..the audience had no idea what to make of it!!!
Sneaking in almost unnoticed at #75 was this:-
mp3: The Tourists – I Only Want To Be With You
As with The Jam, this was The Tourists third chart hit of 1979, and it would prove to be their biggest in their short existence. A cover of a Dusty Springfield hit from 1964, this would spend 7 weeks in the Top 10 throughout December and into the first few weeks of January 1980, thus gaining loads of sales in that crucial Christmas period. It would peak at #4 which, coincidentally, was the same success that Dusty had enjoyed 15 years previously.
11-17 November was another that was short on quantity, but big on quality
mp3: Pretenders – Brass In Pocket (#57)
Another band enjoying a third chart hit of 1979, but where Stop Your Sobbing and Kid had barely dented the Top 40, Brass In Pocket was a different beast altogether. It’s one of those songs that gets lumped onto a fair number of ‘Alternative Hits of the 80s’ compilations, which is kind of understandable when you look at its chart trajectory. In at #57….four weeks later in mid-December, it had crept up to #30. Five weeks later, it reached #1 in mid-January, enjoying a two-week stay at the top, before eventually falling out of the Top 75 in March, a full 17 weeks after it had first come in. A brilliant pop song that has aged superbly.
It was also a chart that delivered a cash-in.
mp3: The Police – Fall Out (#70)
The past 18 months had delivered worldwide pop success for The Police, but here was a reminder of their new wave roots. The debut single, originally released in May 1977 on Illegal Records. It had been written by Stewart Copeland and the guitarist was Henry Padovani as Andy Summers had yet to join. Sting‘s role was just to look pretty and sing. Fall Out had flopped on its initial release, but the demand for product was such, and even though the band’s sound have move a long long way from new wave, that this would reach #47 in due course.
Moving swiftly on to 18-24 November, it proved to be a chart with some intriguing new entries.
Hands up if you can recall and then sing along to Gary Numan‘s follow-up single to Cars. I thought so….very few of you
mp3: Gary Numan – Complex (#15)
Where Are Friends Electric and Cars had been upbeat and jaunty numbers and very much on the synth-pop side of things, this one is slow, meandering, serious and of the type that has listeners stroking their chins. It takes almost 90 seconds, half the duration of the song, before the lyric begins. I’ve a feeling that if Gary Numan hadn’t been such a phenomena back in 1979 that this would not have had much airplay on daytime radio. It did, however, get A-listed and in due course would peak at #6 the following week.
I’ve mentioned a few bands for whom November 1979 brought a third chart hit across the calendar year. It’s time to give praise to a band that was having its fourth hit of the year
mp3: The Skids – Working For The Yankee Dollar
It had all started with Into The Valley in February, followed by Animation and Charade. There is no doubt that the band’s sound evolved and changed a huge deal across the year. The first hit was new wave personified but the final hit, with all sorts of keyboards has more than a hint of prog. What hadn’t changed, however, was the catchy sing-along nature of the verses and chorus, albeit it was till nigh-on impossible to get all the words right! Working For The Yankee Dollar came in at #34 and nine weeks later it reached its peak of #20 after an incredibly slow rise to that position, going 34, 32, 28, 27, 24, 24, 23, 21, 20.
One place below The Skids in the new chart was a song from another band, enjoying a fourth hit single of the year
mp3: Blondie – Union City Blue
In at #35 and eventually peaking at #13. A relative flop given that Heart of Glass, Sunday Girl and Dreaming had been #1 or #2. A sign that the halcyon days of Blondie were over??? Don’t be silly……normal service would be resumed in February and April 1980 with two more #1s. Union City Blue did, however, prove that the band were more likely to have hits with pop or disco orientated songs rather than rock-type efforts.
Coming in at #55, was someone on the comeback trail.
mp3: Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
Back in 1979, I only knew of Marianne Faithfull through her acting and the fact she had been romantically involved with Mick Jagger. I had no idea that she had enjoyed a number of Top 10 hit singles back in 1965 and then a minor hit in 1967. November 1979 had seen the release of an album, Broken English, with the music press and broadsheet newspapers in particular highlighting it was the work of someone coming back from a long period in the wilderness that had included periods of drug addiction, homelessness and anorexia, all of which had messed with her voice. It’s an album that gained great critical acclaim on its release, and has done so ever since. But sales wise, it didn’t initially do all that much, only reaching #57 in the UK, albeit it sold in better numbers across Europe.
In an effort to boost sales, a single was lifted from it. It was one of a number of covers recorded for the album, of a tune originally recorded back in 1974 by Dr Hook & The Medicine Show. I really have to share the review that was printed in Smash Hits magazine, none of whose targetted readership would have had a clue about Marianne’s past history:-
“The Debbie Harry of the sixties returns to vinyl with an honestly outstanding offering, a version of an old Doctor Hook number related over a swimming synthesiser. If you can handle this, it sounds like Dolly Parton produced by Brian Eno. Only better.”
Absolute genius!!!!!!!!!
With that, it’s time to move on to the chart of 24 November – 1 December. I wasn’t expecting much, given that this is when record company bosses put the emphasis on the festive or novelty songs that are likely to curry favour rather than promoting anything serious or worthwhile.
mp3: The Police – Walking On The Moon (7″)
A first in this series, with a band enjoying two new chart entries in the same month. A&M Records weren’t happy with the Illegal Records re-release of Fall Out, but given the band weren’t involved in any way with its promotion, and the fact that the next ‘proper’ single would come in at #5, before hitting the #1 spot, demonstrated that no damage to the brand had been done.
And here’s some more proof of why 1979 was, without any question, the best-ever in terms of delivering chart success for great/memorable/important singles.
mp3: Sugarhill Gang – Rapper’s Delight
This would have been the first time I ever heard a rap song. I’d be fibbing if I said I took to it instantly. I did love the fact it made great use of Good Times by Chic, but the fast-flowing and difficult to decipher lyric was something I didn’t ‘get’. Looking back on things, I am happy to acknowledge, and not for the first time, that my tastes in music had yet to fully form at the age of 16. I had no immediate reference points for this type of music but over the next few years, thanks in part to The Clash and Blondie referencing rap music and incorporating it into their own songs, it began to make a great deal of sense. By the time Grandmaster Flash appeared on the scene in 1982 with The Message, I was more than ready to embrace things, albeit I would still only dip my toes into the water for a few more years before fully immersing myself.
Rapper’s Delight came in at #38. Within two weeks, it was at #3, and it wouldn’t leave the Top 75 until February 1980. It’s far from the greatest rap song ever written and recorded, but it must be one of the most important as it was a game-changer.
I should mention in passing that this was the chart in which Pink Floyd, to the chagrin of their fans who saw the band as being an albums-only outfit, saw a single, Another Brick In The Wall, come in at #26. It was their first Top 40 single since 1967 and would, in reaching #1 a couple of weeks later, become their best known song. I thought of it back then as a novelty hit. Still do.
It was also the chart in which Paul McCartney first got to tell us of his Wonderful Christmas Time, and he hasn’t stopped doing so since. It came in at #61, and eventually reached #6. It has subsequently featured in the Top 75 in 2007, 2011, 2012, 2015 and every year since 2017 since teh dawn of digital downloads counting towards chart positions.
Part 2 of this feature, with 45s from November 1979 that didn’t chart, will be with you in a couple of weeks.
My summer of ’79 saw me enter the big bad world of paid employment. I actually told a few lies to land the job, the vacancy for which had been advertised in the local job centre.
I was legally able to leave school, but I was always planning to return after the summer holidays to go into 5th year to sit the exams that would count towards university admission. But I wanted to earn a bit of money, and so I applied for, and landed, a job in the city centre branch of Halford’s, the UK’s biggest retailer of cycling and motor products. I told the store bosses that I had no intention of returning to school, no matter how good the results of my O-Grades, and, yes, I did see myself as being very interested if the chance arose to train as a store manager once I turned 18 in a couple of years time.
I started the job a couple of days after my 16th birthday, and so the month of July was when I really settled into it. It was a shop where the radio played in the background all day long, and with most of the staff being lads aged in their late teens/early 20s, the station of choice was BBC Radio 1, which means my ears were exposed to a lot of what was in the charts.
As you’d expect, there was a fair bit of rubbish regularly aired, but then again Tubeway Army, Squeeze, Blondie, The Ruts and The Skids were all still in the Top 40, while some cracking disco/soul classics from Earth Wind & Fire/The Emotions, McFadden & Whitehead, and Chic were also capable of putting a smile on my face. The highest new entry in the chart in the first week of July is not one I can recall hearing on Radio 1:-
mp3: Public Image Limited – Death Disco (#34)
Jaysus, this was really weird sounding. The 16-year-old me had a difficulty with it. I bought it, but I can’t say I particularly liked listening to it. So much so, that I gave it away to someone who handed me two of the early Jam singles in exchange (Eddie didn’t like that they were a pop band nowadays). It took me a few years to really appreciate Death Disco… till 1990 in fact, when I bought a CD copy of a Public Image Limited singles compilation. As I wrote on this blog previously, by this point in my life I knew that great songs didn’t need hooks or memorable, hummable tunes, and that a cauldron of noise in which a screaming vocal fights for your attention alongside screeching guitars over a bass/drum delivery that on its own would have you dancing like a madman under the flashing lights could be a work of genius. This spent seven weeks in the Top 75, peaking at #20.
While researching this piece, I discovered, to my shock/delight, that Death Disco had appeared on a Top of The Pops budget compilation – these albums featured uncredited session musicians/singers replicating the sound of current chart hits. I think there were about 100 or so of them released between 1968 and 1982, and they were stupidly cheap in comparison to a proper studio album, and from memory weren’t all that more expensive than a couple of singles. This is really strange:-
mp3: Top Of The Pops – Death Disco
I’m thinking that John Lydon pissed himself laughing at the very idea of this, and as such was more than happy to give his blessing to it.
The next one of interest in the chart of 1-7 July is another I can’t recall hearing in Halford’s
mp3: Siouxsie & The Banshees – Playground Twist (#47)
The third of the S&TB singles wasn’t a commercial offering by any stretch of the imagination, but it did sell enough copies to reach #28 in a six-week stay.
Coming in a bit further down the chart was one that I recall hearing loads of times in the shop:-
mp3: The Police – Can’t Stand Losing You (#60)
This had been a near smash-hit in late 1978, spending five weeks in the charts and reaching #42. The Police had gone massive in the first half of ’79, and it was easy enough for A&M Records to press up more copies of the old singles to meet the new demand. Where Roxanne had taken the band into the Top 20, this was the one that sealed the deal, getting all the way to #2 in mid-August.
The second singles chart of July ’79 was a strange one. No ‘big’ entries, with the highest coming in at at #48, courtesy of Abba. Many of other newbies are names I am struggling to recall – Chantal Curtis, Stonebridge McGuiness, Judie Tzuke, Vladimir Cosma, and Light of The World. There was, however, one truly outstanding song which came in at #62:-
mp3: The Pretenders – Kid
It remains my favourite 45 of all that Chrissie & co ever put down on vinyl. Indeed, it is one of THE great records in what was, as this series is demonstrating, a great year for music; it spent seven weeks on the chart in July and August 1979, peaking at #33. Should have got to #1….but that feat for The Pretenders was just around the corner.
The third week of July saw an unusual song as its highest new entry at #15:-
mp3: The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays
Here’s the thing. I more than liked the Boomtown Rats and owned copies of their first two albums. I wasn’t at prepared for the new single…..it was all over the radio before it was actually released, and looking back at things now, it must be one of the first examples of a viral marketing campaign based on artificially creating a reaction to something that some folk declared to be ‘shocking’. I can’t say that I cared much for the song, and it was conspicuous by its absence when I pulled together a Rats ICA back in October 2022. The week after entering at #15, I Don’t Like Mondays went to #1, where it stayed for four weeks, and then another two weeks at #2. All told, it sold over 500,000 copies and was the 4th biggest selling single of 1979.
mp3: David Bowie – D.J.
Bowie followed up the success of Boys Keep Swinging with a second single from the album Lodger. This would have been heard in Halford’s but not all that often given that it came in at #29 in the third week of July but immediately dropped down the following week, and Radio 1 daytime DJs usually only gave spins to records that were on the up.
mp3: Sparks – Beat The Clock
This was very much all over the workplace radio….the sort of song that sounded great over the airwaves and made the individual DJs feel as if they were being a bit edgy. A fantastic piece of disco-pop, thanks to the efforts of the brothers Mael and Giorgio Moroder. A nine-week stay in the charts was the reward, with a best placing of #10.
mp3: The Undertones – Here Comes The Summer
Yup….July ’79 was the release date for this one. Really doesn’t seem like 45 years ago, but there you have the facts presented before you, so there’s no denying it. The other thing I’d have said about this was that it must have been a Top 20 hit, given how often I recall hearing it and that it lodged so easily into my brain. But nope, in at #63 and peaking a couple of weeks later at #34, which was kind of a similar trajectory to this one:-
mp3: Buzzcocks – Harmony In My Head
The first 45 not to feature a lead vocal from Pete Shelley, the delivery from Steve Diggle made this just a little bit rougher round the edges than previous Buzzcocks singles. But it was, and still is, a great listen. In at #67 and peaking at #32…..and I’d have lost any bet offered on whether this or Here Comes The Summer had peaked highest.
And so, to the final singles chart of July 1979.
As with a couple of weeks previous, nothing came in fresh at any high position. #50 was the best on offer, and it was from Showaddyfuckingwaddy. So no chance of it featuring here.
I was scrolling all the way through the Top 75 of 22-27 July, and just as I was concluding there wouldn’t be anything worth featuring, i noticed this was a new entry at #74:-
mp3: The Specials – Gangsters
One that I don’t so much associate with July 1979 and more about a period after I had finished at Halford’s and returned to school where I would take my first ever foray into DJ’ing. It’s a tale I told when I wrote about Gangsters in the Great Debut Singles series:-
“1979/80 marked my first forays into DJing, if playing records on a single deck at a youth night in the school could be regarded as DJing. The senior pupils were encouraged to help the teachers at these nights, which were basically an effort to provide bored 12-15 year olds with something to do instead of hanging around street corners and picking up bad habits. There were three of us who brought along our own 45s to play while everyone ran around making lots of noise burning up all that excess energy. Very gradually over a matter of weeks, our little corner of the hall began to get a dedicated audience, and it was all driven by the fact they loved to do the Madness dance(s). In two hours of music, you could bet that more than half came through records on the 2-Tone label or its offshoots. And these kids were of an age when playing the same song two or three times in a night didn’t matter.”
Happy days indeed. Gangsters went on to spend 12 weeks in the charts, peaking at #6.
All you need to do is read over the January 1979 posts for this new series to get an idea of how excited I was to be looking back at the 45s from 45 years ago.
February 1979 kind of dampens things down. It was seeing the song Bat Out Of Hell by Meat Loaf enter the singles chart at #25 on 4 February which provided a reminder of what really dominated things. It’s not so much the single, which spent just eight weeks in the Top 75, peaking at #15. It’s the parent album. It had come into the charts on 11 March 1978. It spent much of the rest of the year hanging around, but never getting into the Top 10. By 6 January 1979, it was sitting at #73 and looking as it if would finally give us all much needed peace and quiet. That’s when it got its second wind and started climbing up the charts again. It would be in the Top 75 for 321 of the next 329 weeks. There couldn’t have been too many houses that didn’t have a copy…..but mine was one of them! It’s an album that has continued to enjoy the occasional revival, and according to wiki, it has spent 522 weeks on the UK album chart. Ten feckin’ years…..(cue joke about crimes and jail sentences).
But then again, there were these to enjoy for the first time the same month.
mp3: Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Oliver’s Army
It came in quietly at #45 on 4 February and stayed around the Top 75 for twelve weeks, finding itself stuck at #2 for three successive weeks, unable to dislodge The Bee Gees or Gloria Gaynor. There are some who say it was only such a big hit as the piano part subconsciously reminded record-buyers of Abba.
mp3: The Pretenders – Stop Your Sobbing
As I mentioned last time out, 1979 was a year in which many new bands emerged to enjoy success, much of which turned out to be fleeting. The Pretenders rather excellent debut single, offering a new take on a Kinks song from 1964, hit the charts at #60 on 4 February, and in due course would climb into the Top 40. There was much much more to come from Chrissie Hynde & co throughout the remainder of the year, and beyond.
mp3: The Skids -Into The Valley
11 February was the chart in which The Skids made their first appearance of the year, having enjoyed a couple of minor hits in 1978. Getting to perform on Top of The Pops was a turning point in their career, thanks to Richard Jobson‘s mesmerising dancing that made you wonder if he’d been auditioning for the can-can girls in Paris. Into The Valley, whose title reflects a rather rundown housing estate not far from the band’s home town of Dunfermline, would spend 11 weeks in the charts and peak at #10. It’s still, all these years later, the walk-out tune for Dunfermline Athletic FC.
mp3: The Cars – Just What I Needed
Another new entry on 11 February. And recently looked at in some depth on this blog, right here.
mp3: Lene Lovich – Lucky Number
Lene Lovich, an American-English songwriter and performer (she was born in Detroit but moved to Hull, aged 13) was on Stiff Records here in the UK. A flop single in 1978 had thrown up an interesting b-side, which Stiff felt had potential. Re-released in February 1979, Lucky Number proved to be all that the record label bosses had imagined. It entered the charts at #62, and following a Top of The Pops appearance after it had climbed into the Top 30, Lene’s unique look and sound temporarily found a bigger market with the single going Top 3.
Two weeks later, on 25 February, Sex Pistols enjoyed a chart entry with the double-A side of Something Else/Friggin’ In The Riggin’ that eventually also went Top 3. Cartoon punk was now a thing….see also the fact that Generation X, fronted by BIlly Idol, were also riding high in February 1979. But at least Joe, Mick, Paul and Topper could save us…..
mp3: The Clash – English Civil War
The second 45 to be lifted from Give ‘Em Enough Rope came in at #39 and would end end spending six weeks in and around the environs of the chart, selling in decent enough numbers each week to offer up a chart run that nowadays could pass as a lottery ticket selection – 39 28 34 25 27 30.
The final week of February also saw the return of some of the original glamsters.
mp3: Roxy Music – Trash
Roxy Music had been away for a few years – the last original hit single had been in 1975 – with Bryan Ferry carving out a successful solo career. This was the comeback 45. One that I like, but it’s not regarded as being close to the band’s finest moments, as evidenced that it got no higher than #40.
The cover of the NME from 18 October 1980 featuring James Honeyman-Scott and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders – those were the days my friends when being on the cover of that paper meant something.
The thing is, James and Chrissie were on the cover despite not really having anything to promote, but obviously were of such interest and significance that they were seen as liable to attract additional readers that week.
They’re are a band that not too many bloggers seem to write about, certainly compared to many of their contemporaries, and I’m certainly guilty of neglecting them over the years at TVV. But over the festive period I gave listen to their Greatest Hits CD for the first time in years and realised that I’d forgotten just how great their earliest releases really were.
Stop Your Sobbing – a cover of a Kinks song that spent nine weeks on the chart between February and April 1979, peaking at #34
Kid – one of THE great records of a great year for music; it spent seven weeks on the chart in July and August 1979, peaking at #33
Brass In Pocket – the #1 hit that brought them to the attention of a wider public. Seventeen weeks on the chart between November 1979 and April 1980
Talk Of The Town – held back until Brass In Pocket slipped off the radar, eight weeks on the chart in April and May 1980, peaking at #8
Message Of Love – the comeback single after a period out of the spotlight. Seven weeks on the chart in February and March 1981, peaking at #11
Some of you might only know the band only through Brass In Pocket or the later radio-friendly rubbish like Don’t Get Me Wrong or the perennial Xmas effort 2000 Miles. It’s hard to imagine that previously, The Pretenders had been a more than half-decent band. But then again, that was before the deaths of two of the four founding members….
mp3 : The Pretenders – Stop Your Sobbing
mp3 : The Pretenders – Kid
mp3 : The Pretenders – Talk Of The Town
mp3 : The Pretenders – Message Of Love
Having listened to a bit of their stuff on the i-pod on the way to work the other day, I felt like putting together a post about The Pretenders. Once again though, this is something done previously on the old blog and so its a cut n paste job from the small number of the 2,500+ postings that I’ve managed to retrieve and store. This is from January 2013:-
The cover of the NME from 18 October 1980 featuring James Honeyman-Scott and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders – those were the days my friends when being on the cover of that paper meant something.
The thing is, James and Chrissie were on the cover despite not really having anything to promote, but obviously were of such interest and significance that they were seen as liable to attract additional readers that week.
They’re are a band that not too many bloggers seem to write about, certainly compared to many of their contemporaries, and I’m certainly guilty of neglecting them over the years at TVV. But over the festive period I gave listen to their Greatest Hits CD for the first time in years and realised that I’d forgotten just how great their earliest releases really were.
Stop Your Sobbing – a cover of a Kinks song that spent nine weeks on the chart between February and April 1979, peaking at #34
Kid – one of THE great records of a great year for music; it spent seven weeks on the chart in July and August 1979, peaking at #33
Brass In Pocket – the #1 hit that brought them to the attention of a wider public. Seventeen weeks on the chart between November 1979 and April 1980
Talk Of The Town – held back until Brass In Pocket slipped off the radar, eight weeks on the chart in April and May 1980, peaking at #8
Message Of Love – the comeback single after a period out of the spotlight. Seven weeks on the chart in February and March 1981, peaking at #11
Some of you might only know the band only through Brass In Pocket or the later radio-friendly rubbish like Don’t Get Me Wrong or the perennial Xmas effort 2000 Miles. It’s hard to imagine that previously, The Pretenders had been a more than half-decent band. But then again, that was before the deaths of two of the four founding members….
mp3 : The Pretenders – Stop Your Sobbing
mp3 : The Pretenders – Kid
mp3 : The Pretenders – Talk Of The Town
mp3 : The Pretenders – Message Of Love
Having taken the lazyish approach with The Pretenders, I’ve decided in fact that the remainder of this week will consist of old cut n paste stuff…..sorry about that if you’re a reader from the golden and olden days but hopefully those of you who are new and never saw much of the old blog will find stuff to enjoy.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 