Before Hate for Sale, the last time the entire lineup of the Pretenders appeared on one of the band’s album covers was 36 years ago. Explaining this streak may be deceptively easy if noting that Chrissie Hynde, lead singer and guitarist, is the principal creative force behind the band. But Hynde is also the only constant member owing to the band’s rocky history, pocked by the drug-related deaths of two founding members in the early 80s, followed by Hynde dismissing drummer Martin Chambers a few years later, then bringing him back in 1994. Guitarists came and went, briefly including the Smiths’ Johnny Marr. Four years ago, Hynde utilized studio musicians for the Pretenders album Alone.
However, the Pretenders’ current touring lineup — which is also the official band lineup — of the last twelve years, which includes Chambers, recorded Hate for Sale. Hynde co-wrote all the songs with the band’s guitarist, James Walbourne (co-founder of The Rails), bringing the dynamics of collaboration back to the Pretenders. Just as its cover captures the swagger of the entire lineup, resembling covers of the band’s first three albums, the pulse of Hate for Sale evokes that of the band’s first offerings: visceral, provocative, and unrelenting.
“Money in the bank and coke in his pocket / Porn all day, he wanks like a rocket / Teeth capped, ooh he goes to the gym / Ches
t waxed, ooh I look like him,” Hynde sneers in the title track, her lyrics “mostly about my ex-boyfriends,” she mentioned in a recent interview. The band channels late 70s punk in this swift, crunchy jaunt, Hynde’s harmonica flying above Chambers’ crash-riding. Regardless of whether or not listeners will miss that clean, chorus-y guitar sound synonymous with the Pretenders, we seem to have learned something about Hynde’s taste in men.
Ah, but the jangly chorus guitar returns in “The Buzz,” a timeless number in which Hynde displays her customary vocal gymnastics by having traded the comfortable upper hand from the title track for a stinging vulnerability. “The buzz, I can’t get no relief / You’ve reduced me to a liar, a liar and a thief,” pleads Hynde, comparing the euphoria of love to the highs of a drug, revealing the similar pursuits of both.
The Pretenders have often enjoyed exploring different styles on the same album, with an uncanny talent for coaxing it all into a cohesive bundle. Producer Stephen Street (The Cranberries, The Smiths) ensured Hate for Sale sound as smooth and unified as on past albums. While “Brass in Pocket,” from their first album, exudes a subtle R & B sway, Hate for Sale’s ballad “You Can’t Hurt a Fool” aims to virtually take you to the Apollo Theater (in hindsight, an admirable goal, since the real Apollo will not reopen for some time). Meanwhile, “Lightning Man” employs spacy reggae to serve up Hynde’s warning on the dangers of one’s inner demons.
Recalling her reflections on “My city was gone” from Learning How To Crawl (1984), Hynde, on Hate for Sale, writes about life at street level — about things other people might not see or choose not to see — and then dissects her subject without trepidation. Consider junkies, for instance. Those of us in cities such as New York have seen them scurrying with insectile determination on sidewalks and subway platforms (an observation from the pre-Covid era when I took the subway every day). Now this forgotten demographic has its own song! As the band chants “Look your mother in the eye / Steal her pills, make her cry” on “Junkie Walk,” the listener would be forgiven for asking if the band had recruited Jack White and Joan Jett as guest performers. But no, that’s just the Pretenders hitting their mark.
Hynde continues to call out her exes (“She’ll never know In Cincinnati / He’s never going to show”) in the “Jean Genie”-esque cruiser “Turf Accountant Daddy,” which also contains the album’s obligatory Ohio reference, courtesy of Akron-born Hynde. The energy stays high with “I didn’t want to be this lonely” and “I didn’t know when to stop,” the former with its Bo Diddley-inspired beat, the latter throbbing from its core of stripped-down rock. Both are street race-ready.
The only questionable spot on Hate for Sale is “Maybe love is in NYC.” While Hynde’s vocal melodies fittingly remain as unresolved as the song’s subject, the song fails to take the listener from one place to another, as with the rest of the album.
The closing track, “Crying in Public,” should come with a warning. Something like “Skip this song if you are feeling unusually downcast.” Hynde again mines a reality that most refrain from talking about (“Aristocrat, pauper or the bourgeoise / All know what it feels like / When life’s misery means crying in public”). The gentle strings and Walbourne’s piano usher along one of Hynde’s most moving vocal performances since 1994’s “I’ll stand by you.”
While Hate for Sale doesn’t attempt to venture far into new territory, raising the question of relevance in an epoch of rock’s ever-shrinking share of the Billboard charts, the album is not without context. Break up the Concrete (2008) presented Hynde’s exploration of rockabilly and pedal steel guitar-infused Americana, while the Pretenders’ penultimate release, Alone (2016), put forth an updated, occasionally dreamy take on tube-era ambience shaped by producer Dan Auerbach (half of the Black Keys), and includes “Never be together”, a foray into spy-movie indie rock co-written by Bjorn Yttling of Peter, Bjorn and John. With a few exceptions, Hynde wrote all other tracks on both albums.
Cut from the same cloth but with different shears, Hate for Sale is the satisfying result of Hynde and company reigniting the fire of collaboration as they returned to and reinvestigated their varied rock-based roots, breathing a fresh vitality into the genre. Now that is relevant.
Image credit: Ohconfucious
