Detroit Leaning

Pretenders : Brass In Pocket

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On November 11, the new Pretenders single, "Brass In Pocket", entered the U.K. charts at #57. By January of 1980, the month the band's debut album finally came out on Real Records, it would top the U.K. charts. The tune would also be a U.S.#14 hit, even inspiring a few to learn what the Yorkshire term "brass in pocket" means ( spare change) though nobody has really deciphered the phrase "Detroit leaning".

Many male critics were taken with singer-songwriter Chrissie Hynde's sex appeal in this song. Here's David Hepworth's review in Smash Hits:

Well, they may be keeping us waiting a sinful long time for their debut album, but as long as they can put out singles as simple and easy as this then they've got good reason to be confident. This is less of a song than a series of remarks that gets its hooks in you with one simple guitar riff over a light and lovely rhythm. I think she's got a sexy voice.

That may be true but Hynde also spoke to women in a way no rocker has before. Here's what Ann Powers wrote about this song and the debut album as a whole:

In the same way that The Cather in the Rye gave generations of undergrads ab way to make sense of their own alienation, or Fear of Flying taught secretaries and schoolteachers how they might articulate desire, Pretenders pinpointed the thrills and frustration felt by  the women musicians, record store clerks, band managers, scenesters, and fans living in the shadow of a male-dominated rock + roll --but also daring the rebel moves it seemed to make possible.

The B-sides, sadly, are both uninspired instrumentals.

I just watched "Lost In Translation" for a second time last week. Scarlett Johansson performs the song in a karaoke bar in a memorable scene that has the audience wondering what exactly is happening between her and Bill Murray.  One of those odd moments when my musical life crosses over into my real one.

Pinball Child Pool Hall Child

Pretenders : The Wait (single version)

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In January of 1979 Real Records released "Stop Your Sobbing" b/w "The Wait", the debut single from Pretenders. The UK press would soon be raving about the killer band featuring the tuff American front woman Chrissie Hynde, "the best new singer in ages" according to Richard Williams of Melody Maker. 

The A side is a 1964 Kinks cover and among the safest tunes that would appear on the debut album a full year away. (Though Ray Davies might have been taken by their version as well as his future romantic interest Hynde). 

More interesting to these ears is the B-side, a Hynde/ Pete Farndon collaboration called "The Wait". Produced by Hydne's friend, Nick "Basher" Lowe, it's rougher than the version on the album version and has a live in studio feel. When James Honeyman-Scott launches into the solo, you can hear why critics called Pretenders the future of rock n roll. 

That's the kind of publicity Hynde wanted to avoid...as she told Melody Maker's Allan Jones in the Summer of '79.

It really pissed me off. But I shouldn't have been pissed off, I should've been more hip to the press, I shoulda understood it better...

But, like, at that stage you don't wanna whole lotta attention. You don't want a lotta people looking over your fuckin' shoulder when you're putting something together. You don't really want anyone around. They start giving you advice and you're not asking for it.

They start pointing you in directions, you know, man, and you're still finding your own direction. ...And it can be, like, dangerous if you start listening to them when they're like on the fuckin' phone ramming themselves down your throat.

Pretenders would release two more singles in 1979, including "Brass in Pocket"which would top the U.K. charts.