{"id":39588,"date":"2006-01-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/learning-to-crawl\/"},"modified":"2006-01-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-02T00:00:00","slug":"learning-to-crawl","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/learning-to-crawl\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning To Crawl"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

[Adapted from a review that first appeared in<\/i>
\nOn The Town magazine 5\/28\/96]<\/i><\/p>\n

So what do you do when, three years down the road
\nfrom your massively successful debut album, half your band OD’s at
\nthe same time you’re becoming a single mother? If you’re a
\nsinger-songwriter with the guts and talent of Chrissie Hynde, you
\ngo out and author the best album of your career.<\/p>\n

The Pretenders’ first two albums had already had an
\nalmost revolutionary impact on the early ’80s music scene, grafting
\nof the furious energy of late ’70s punk and new wave onto the
\ncerebral guitar-rock of bands like the Kinks and projecting it
\nthrough the sensuous tough-girl persona of bandleader Hynde. Then
\ndisaster struck: first bassist Pete Farndon was booted from the
\nband when he became too strung out too perform; then guitarist
\nJames Honeyman-Scott, co-architect with Hynde of the band’s to-then
\nunique sound, died suddenly from a drug overdose. Within a year,
\nFarndon was dead as well. Meanwhile, Hynde had conceived a child
\nwith Kinks leader Ray Davies and gave birth in the midst of the
\nchaos.<\/p>\n

The first sign that these setbacks were less than
\npermanent ones for the Pretenders came with the release in early
\n1983 of a single containing two songs which would eventually appear
\non Learning To Crawl<\/i>: “Back on the Chain Gang” and “My City
\nWas Gone.” These two songs, more melodic than most earlier
\nPretenders output and tinged with an aching sense of loss, were
\nnonetheless also marked by a gritty determination to carry on that
\nestablished Hynde’s public persona as much more than just a stage
\nfront, while also solidifying her reputation as a singer-songwriter
\nof the first order.<\/p>\n

The album which followed launches strongly with
\n“Middle Of The Road,” a driving rocker whose looping central hook
\ngrabs on tight. It’s immediately apparent Hynde’s lyrics have lost
\nnothing of their pointed strength, and the other remaining original
\nPretender, drummer Martin Chambers, pounds his way through like a
\nman on fire. More hard-edged songs follow — chiefly the
\nicepick-between-the-ribs kiss-off “Time the Avenger,” the droll
\nrave-up “Watching The Clothes,” and the dark, tempestuous “I Hurt
\nYou” — but the news was the public blooming of Hynde’s softer
\nside. On songs like “Back On The Chain Gang,” “Thumbelina” and the
\nluminous “Show Me,” Hynde lifts quieter emotions from her own
\ntroubled heart and makes them universal, revealing a vulnerability
\nthat rounds out her aforementioned persona without weakening it in
\nthe least.<\/p>\n

Learning To Crawl<\/i> is a testament to
\nresiliency, and arguably the best album of what remains, more than
\ntwo decades years after the rubble of the band’s early catastrophes
\nsettled, a career-in-progress for Chrissie Hynde and her
\nPretenders.<\/p>\n

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