Every Pretenders' album has its merits but the debut is spectacular. Learning To Crawl is probably almost as good. I also really have a soft spot for Loose Screw and Break Up The Concrete. I have not yet had an opportunity to listen to the new one.
Pretenders2 for me.remember the reviews were a bit lukewarm at the time after the brilliance of the 1st album.but the 2nd has got some beauty's on it English roses'.jealous dogs' etc.jimmy Scott's guitar playing was in a class of its own.always makes me think what might have been.alas wasn't meant to be.bloody hard drugs again.x
another vote for the first, bought when new, had no idea what it sounded like, I just looked at the cover and said 'It's Me!'' Learning to Crawl next, followed by the 2nd album.
I voted Packed! just to be a contrarian. It's not a perfect album by any means but has a certain vulnerability and charm. Never Do That, Sense of Purpose, Let's Make A Pact and Criminal are wonderful tunes.
H-C was integral for the arrangements, but Chrissie pretty much wrote all the tunes all along. What was lacking after his death and Farndon's was the gang mentality; members came and went too quickly for any line-up to feel like a band of equals.
First is my favorite by a wide margin -then Learning To Crawl and Pretenders 2 in that order. Break Up The Concrete is a strong later period release.
Their debut is arguably their best, but I have a super soft spot for Get Close (1986) -- which was the first Pretenders album I actually owned (and ever heard in full). I probably knew most their prior radio hits (K-She95 had a pretty deep playlist back then), but I got into Hendrix super deep while I was in high-school, and somehow I got wind of the Pretenders having covered "Roomful of Mirrors" (which I must have heard on the radio, as I can't imagine how I would have ever found out about it otherwise). Or maybe it could have been that they included the tune in a set-list from some Westwood One "Superstars In Concert" broadcast, many of which I faithfully taped off the radio (any/every artist even remotely of interest) -- and if so, I probably checked the track-listings of every Pretenders album I could find, until I tracked down the one with "Roomful...". So I voted for Get Close on that basis.
I especially agree with your last comment. To me, Break Up The Concrete is easily their best since Learning To Crawl.
I remember hearing 'Roomful Of Mirrors' a lot on the radio in 1986 on my then-local rock station (WHJY, Hartford, CT). Back when radio was good.
Ah, good, well then maybe the studio-version did get some airplay (that seems like an eternity ago). All of Chrissie's Jimi covers are fantastic ("Room Full of Mirrors" and "Axis Bold As Love" -- seems like there's a third one I'm forgetting??). She should do more!
I actually found Learning To Crawl to be a bit frustrating at the time. I know that after such a loss it is tough to get another record together, but by the time it was released only about half of the tracks were "new". The best track (IMO) was release in 82! Middle Of The Road and 2000 Miles were already released as singles. I still like it but really consider it more of a "compilation album".
Never understood all of the hate for this one. It has some stinkers on it, but Chrissie herself has described some of the tracks on II to be a bit... "smelly" too.
My favorite is Learning to Crawl. That said, I did spin Get Close this weekend, and I always enjoy that album as well. It doesn't compare to the debut, but Get Close receives very little love, it seems--not enough love, IMHO.
The debut, of course, but all the first four albums are strong, even if Get Close was essentially Chrissie solo with a few backing musicians. I prefer the third album, Learning to Crawl, to the second, but I know lots would go the other way. I don't normally like Greatest Hits albums, but the Pretenders is one I make an exception for.
Roomful of Mirrors was part of the set list on the tour for Learning To Crawl. I have a lot of the radio broadcasts, but don't think that track slipped out via broadcast until the Get Close tour. When Get close came out, there was a video for the track that used footage from the MTV concert broadcast to support Learning To Crawl. If you have seen that MTV tape, I think Chrissie walks up to the camera and throws a hat over it at the point in the set list where they were playing it. I went to three of their shows for Learning To Crawl and they played it each time as the second to last tune.
Agreed. As a massive Hendrix fan, Chrissie's covers are probably the only ones I really like. You forgot "May This Be Love" off Packed!
