Album of the Day — August 12
The Pretenders — Hate for Sale
The Pretenders — Hate for Sale
12.August.2020
The Pretenders
Hate for Sale
2020
Finally, a fucking rock and roll album!
Chrissy Hynde has led The Pretenders for the past 42 years, and it sounds like she’s still just as pissed as she was on the band’s debut album in 1980.
Hate for Sale opens with the title track that hits you in the face in the way Conor McGregor might.
Chrissy Hynde remains the badass she’s always been.
The Pretenders formed at the tail end of the punk movement after Akron, Ohio native Hynde had moved to London. She found jobs writing for NME and working at Malcolm McLaren’s store.
Musically, she was involved in early versions of both The Clash and The Damned, but after Dave Hill at Anchor Records heard her demo, he encouraged Hynde to record her stuff. Hill booked time at a studio with Hynde and bass player Mal Hart and drummer Phil Taylor — more popularly known as “Philthy Animal” of Motorhead. Yep, Motorhead.
Eventually, a band did coalesce around Hynde. That original quartet included Martin Chambers on drums, James Fardon on bass, and James Honeyman-Scott on guitar. These four would be the group that went in and recorded their first single, a cover of The Kinks “Stop Your Sobbing” (produced by Nick Lowe) that was released in January of 1979.
The following year they released their self-titled debut album, considered by Rolling Stone magazine to be “one of the best debut albums of all time.”
Two years later, Hynde and Honeyman-Scott fired bass player Fardon. Two days after that, James Honeyman-Scott died of heart failure as a result of cocaine. A few months later, former bass player James Fardon drowned in his bathtub after using heroin.
Since then, the only mainstay of The Pretenders has been Chrissy Hynde. It’s been a revolving door of musicians filling different roles over the years. Hynde has even fired and re-hired original drummer Martin Chambers a couple of times.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Over the years, a sampling of Hynde’s accomplishments include:
International Gold and Platinum albums
Hit singles
Writing a Christmas staple (“2000 Miles”)
Having a kid with Ray Davies of The Kinks
Marrying (later divorcing) Jim Kerr of Simple Minds and having a kid with him
Getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Toured the world repeatedly
Been an entrepreneur (opening a vegan restaurant — VegiTerranean — in her native Akron, Ohio, voted among the top five vegan restaurants in the US — now closed)
Is a fervent animal rights activist
Been a writer
Chrissy Hynde has just been a God damn all-around badass
If I ever had a daughter and she came home and told me she wanted to be like Chrissy Hynde, I’d be the happiest father in the world.
After a four year hiatus, their last album Alone was released in 2016, Hynde decided to get the band back together …well, at least the last living member of the original group. She called up drummer Martin Chambers, who had not recorded with her since 2002.
Chrissy Hynde continued her working relationship with British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist James Walbourne and brought in bass player Nick Wilkinson. She also hired producer Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur, The Cranberries), and they set about making Hate for Sale.
With ten songs clocking in at under 31:00, this is a solid rock album.
After a miscount, the album’s title track, an homage to The Damned, roars in proving that Chrissy Hynde, at 62, still has fire inside. Even as an American ex-pat (she’s lived in the UK for decades) the title track doesn’t leave much to the imagination as to who the song is about:
Hate for Sale
CHORUS
Hate for sale
Hate for sale
He won’t get hung or go to jail
He’s got a curly tongue and a curly tail
But mostly he has hate for sale
Call it luck or inherited title
A guy like that is arrogant, idle
He takes and gets whatever he likes
Women, cars and motorbikes
He dines on calves, butchered and bled
Tankards of wine, burgundy red
Handmade suits and shoes and socks
Ooh, his breath could stop the clocks
Ooh, here he comes
He’s so predictable
CHORUS x1
Money in the bank and coke in his pocket
Porn all day, wanks like a rocket
Teeth capped, ooh, he goes to the gym
Chest waxed, ooh, I look like him
OUTRO
Hate for sale x4
All ten tracks were written with James Walbourne and his influence shows. The album’s first single, “The Buzz,” still proves that she’s capable of writing a pop song. Unfortunately, this type of pop song is no longer en vogue. That’s a tragedy because “The Buzz” is just as strong as “Brass in Pocket” or “Back on the Chain Gang.”
“Lightning Man” keeps the long-standing tradition of the marriage between reggae and punk alive.
Chrissy Hynde’s voice is not the same as it was 42 years ago, but why should it be? No one’s voice is. Besides, rock and roll is about attitude, and she still sings with the same attitude as she did then. She sings with more attitude (and skill) than many of today’s “rock” stars. And in the event, you need proof of that, just listen to “I Don’t Know When to Stop.”
“Maybe Love Is in NYC” takes a unique space in my heart. With Walbourne’s mournful Johnny Marr (also a former Pretender guitarist) guitar sound, Hynde’s laconic voice gives the “city that never sleeps” a subtle nod:
Maybe Love Is in NYC
Standing on a rooftop
Overlooking the park
Eyes are glowing
In the dark
The smell of horses lingers in the air
It feels like something else is out there
Maybe love is in New York City
Fluorescent streets might lead me to it
I’ve been to Barcelona, Lima, and Hong Kong
If it was here, I never knew it
If it was here all along
The clouds are low
And cast a misty spell
As if they’ve got
A story to tell
A constellation overhead
A cross-like an ancient gift something, let me here
Maybe love is in New York City
Fluorescent streets might lead me to it
I’ve been to Barcelona, Lima, and Hong Kong
If it was here, I never knew it
If it was here all along
Is it ever too late?
To do what’s never been done
Things change and they’re never quite the same
For anyone
Never understandin’
But now that people told me
This city owns its own mess
Like arms still hold me
I just heard traffic rushin’ past
Everything goin’, goin’ too fast
Everything goin’, goin’ too fast
Maybe love is in New York City
Fluorescent streets might lead me to it
I’ve been to Barcelona, Lima, and Hong Kong
If it was here, I never knew it
If it was here all along
Hynde does her best work when partnered with a guitar player who can accentuate her gifts. James Honeyman-Scott did that, so did Robbie McIntosh, and now it’s James Walbourne who is elevating Hynde’s game.
Not only do the songs benefit, but with an album like Hate for Sale, we all benefit.
CRITICS
Wayne Perry said Hate for Sale is “among the best this legendary band has ever produced,” calling out James Walbourne’s guitar work for his “slashing, speedy solos along with perfectly restrained melodic lines, depending on what’s needed.”
Hal Horowitz, in American Songwriter, wrote: “…these songs have the crackling energy and throbbing passion of the finest Pretenders music.”
Asya Dragonova at The Arts Desk said: “One of the greatest balancing acts in music is knowing when to stop and The Pretenders are well aware of that. So, when a new album of theirs comes out, it’s not the result of an automated process but quality rock’n’roll. Here, the current line-up of the band, which still includes original drummer Martin Chambers, prove they are more than capable of coming up with some really good stuff.”
The Pretenders are anything but pretenders. They are the real deal rock and roll band, and Hate for Sale proves that they’re not just relevant, they’re fucking good!
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