Message of Love - the Pretenders

In my post below on Pat Benatar, I forgot to list the Pretenders as a major female-led band at that time. American-expat-in-the-UK Chrissie Hynde can arguably claim to have become more legendary than any of the woman rockers I did list. I've liked the Pretenders' sound ever since Brass in Pocket hit the radio in the U.S. in 1980. Their first three albums, Pretenders, Pretenders II, and Learning to Crawl (my all time favorite album cover), are as good or better musically than the first three albums of any other artist in the history of rock.

Message of Love, from their second album in 1981 (was released earlier on an EP), exemplifies the rock solidity their songwriting. Hynde's completely unique vocals, combining passion with gutsiness, overlie a decepively simple guitar track that wrings extreme beauty out of its chord-rhythm work and fits perfectly over the classic, almost walking, bassline (not a little out of tune in the live clip below). It's poignant to realize that bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott both died of drug overdoses within two years of the release of Pretenders II. Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers added guitarist Robbie Macintosh and bassist Malcolm Foster for 1984's Learning to Crawl. After that, further personnel changes and less stellar material tended to drag the band down into the general mainstream rock/pop decline of the late-80s/90s, but nothing can tarnish how original, and absolutely trenchant for rock music, the Pretenders's early songs were.