#38 -- Chrissie Hynde

This list's tip of cap to Punk, Chrissie Hynde, is as one review put it "...the female rebuke..." to "...'Under My Thumb'".

Although there were several other female-led bands in the late '70s/early '80s, the craftsmanship that Hynde exhibited on songs like "Back on The Chain Gang" set The Pretenders apart--the emotion we hear is simply true, as opposed to the hurried confections that so often pass for 'hits'.

I am not a fan of punk.  Hynde's fellow Akron, Ohio band Devo, for example, leaves me at 'meh'.  But one thing Punk did was tear down conventional gender roles (while it was tearing down much else).  And so, up popped a woman whose band mates came and went at her discretion.  And I think it's a testament to her principles that her music was never "Chrissie Hynde and The Blank", but that she kept to the original "The Pretenders" (a reference to the Platters' classic song, "The Great Pretender" from 1955--which, incidentally, I first heard and loved when covered by The Band).

...................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

8/3/8/5 = 24 out of a perfect 40

....................................

Awesomeness: When Hynde found out that Rush Limbaugh was regularly using a cut of The Pretenders' hit "My City Was Gone" on his radio show, she wisely negotiated a deal whereby royalties were donated to PETA, surely a more satisfying result than a cease-and-desist order, a strategy her record company had pursued.  One can easily imagine a repeatedly flummoxed Limbaugh, realizing he's supporting animal rights whenever he opens his show with that rhythm-and-bass thunderclap.