Consumer Guide Album

Pretenders: Learning to Crawl [Sire, 1984]
"I'm not the kind I used to be/I've got a kid, I'm thirty-three" is certainly a quotable quote, and whether rock-and-rolling her baby or growling at fat cats Chrissie Hynde backs it up. It's as if two deaths in the family plus her fruitful union with Ray Davies have convinced her beyond any lingering adolescent doubt that other people are there; Chrissie the fuck-off queen always had these humanistic attitudes in her, and it's good to hear her make the thin line between love and hate explicit. Unfortunately, they're still only attitudes, which is to say that like her mate she hasn't thought them through all that much, and as a result the impressive songcraft here doesn't bear hard scrutiny. But since unlike her mate she keeps her nostalgia under control, she gets her comeback anyway. A−