11. The PretendersPretenders

Chrissie Hynde is one of the greatest rock frontwomen of all time. She writes great lyrics, she has a great band, and on this album they were firing on all cylinders and as tough as nails. She could stand toe-to-toe with anybody and she’s a great writer, right? She was a writer pre-Pretenders, too, with an encyclopedic knowledge of music. She’s a very smart, strong woman, and those songs, when you hear them, you go, this is really different. College radio was big in America in the 80s. I remember hearing R.E.M. on the radio for the first time and thinking, what is this? And The Replacements, and New Order, and things like that. The Pretenders were one of those bands. I still liked the older music that I liked when I was a kid, but now I was moving on and hanging out with different people.