Chrissie Hynde: A Musical Biography

American Music Series

by Adam Sobsey

A musical force across four decades, a voice for the ages, and a great songwriter, Chrissie Hynde is one of America’s foremost rockers. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, she and her band The Pretenders have released ten albums since 1980. The Pretenders’ debut LP has been acclaimed as one of the best albums of all time by VH1 and Rolling Stone . In a business filled with “pretenders” and posers, Hynde remains unassailably authentic. Although she blazed the trail for countless female musicians, Hynde has never embraced the role of rock-feminist and once remarked, “It’s never been my intention to change the world or set an example for others to follow.” Instead, she pursued her own vision of rock—a band of “motorcycles with guitars.” Chrissie A Musical Biography traces this legend’s journey from teenage encounters with rock royalty to the publication of her controversial memoir Reckless in 2015. Adam Sobsey digs deep into Hynde’s catalog, extolling her underrated songwriting gifts and the greatness of The Pretenders’ early classics and revealing how her more recent but lesser-known records are not only underappreciated but actually key to understanding her earlier work, as well as her evolving persona. Sobsey hears Hynde’s music as a way into her life outside the studio, including her feminism, signature style, vegetarianism, and Hinduism. She is “a self-possessed, self-exiled idol with no real forbears and no true musical a complete original.”

200 pages, Hardcover

Published April 11, 2017

Reviews

[Jason MARTIN]

Full disclosure...Chrissie Hynde was my first celebrity school boy crush when I saw her in her waitress outfit for the video "Brass in Pocket"...This is record by record take down of Chrissie and her legacy...well written and detailed, a good companion piece to her autobiography, "Reckless"...

[S H]

The author borrowed a little too much from Chrissie’s own autobiography when it came to her quotes. I didn’t read this learning anything new, instead I grew depressed at how he described her career post 1994. Calling her The Great Pretender and then acknowledging her failures.

[Alex G]

A really good biography of this important band, especially given that the author didn't have any access to Ms. Hynde. Worth the read.