It's been 35 years since Chrissie Hynde burst onto the scene with The Pretenders, making her one of the most recognisable faces of New Wave alongside Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux.
So it's perhaps a surprise that it has taken until the age of 62 for the effortlessly cool frontwoman to shed the comfort of the band brand and release a solo LP. It was recorded in Sweden, the cover has her still-youthful cheeks daubed with war paint depicting the colours of the Swedish flag, and she has even name-checked Abba when describing its making ... but it's tennis legend John McEnroe who makes a cameo rather than his Swedish rival Bjorn Borg. That sense of bewilderment surrounds these 11 guitar pop-lite tracks which neither add to not detract from the Pretenders legacy. A Plan Too Far and Dark Sunglasses have sufficient hooks, but much else here struggles to be compared to her band's best work. It did make me revisit Talk Of The Town, Message Of Love, Kid et al, with a new sense of appreciation and wonder, but perhaps that wasn't the point.
Martin Williams
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article