The new wave band Neil Young called “one of the greatest ever”
Neil Young is not the kind of artist that is known to mince his words.
Since this is the same guy who made entire albums’ worth of material just to spite his record company, suffice it to say that Young is the kind of earnest musician who never suffered fools gladly whenever he played. Even though he has been known to roll with the punches whenever he performed, he knew that The Pretenders were unlike any band he had ever heard when he saw them in the early 1980s.
Compared to the other rock legends that he came up with, though, Young was always looking for something different whenever he was playing. While it may have been easy to make a career out of making more regurgitations of ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘After the Gold Rush’, Young dances to no other tune but his own, proceeding to make any kind of music that he thought suited his mood.
That refusal to settle into a single identity became one of Young’s defining traits. At a time when many artists were refining a signature sound, he seemed more interested in disrupting his own patterns, shifting direction whenever things felt too comfortable. It meant that his catalogue could feel unpredictable, but it also ensured that every project carried a sense of intent rather than obligation.
It also shaped the way he listened to other musicians. Young was rarely impressed by technical ability alone, instead gravitating towards artists who carried a similar sense of conviction in their work. There had to be a spark, something that felt urgent and unfiltered, which is why certain bands stood out to him in ways that others never could.
After being known as one of the more mellow names in the folk-rock world with Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Young also had a massive vicious streak going back to his time in Buffalo Springfield. Known for bringing a hefty amount of punch whenever he strapped on an electric guitar, Young was on the brink of punk rock and grunge before either of the genres even existed.
Whereas the initial punk movement came and went in the late 1970s, Chrissie Hynde straddled the line between punk rock energy and post-punk melodicism on every Pretenders album. While there had been many punk acts that relied on attitude throughout their career, Hynde was looking to go down with the greatest songwriters of all time, making the kind of music that left most scratching their heads as to how it even started.
Their legacy didn’t come without hardship, though. After the loss of two of her bandmates to drugs, Hynde would end up coming back even stronger on albums like Learning to Crawl with songs like ‘Back on the Chain Gang’. By the time Young heard her, he knew that the band would be going down as one of the best bands to ever make music.
When inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Young said that few were able to compare to what The Pretenders could do, saying, “When we couldn’t figure out what to do, we used to put on those records. They had a huge impression on me. This is one of the greatest rock and roll bands that ever lived. They went through all of the heartache that rock and roll is built on. Nothing would stop them, and Chrissie is a rock and roll woman. She will be rocking til she drops”.
Even when Young has his fair share of wilderness periods throughout his career, The Pretenders have remained consistently kickass throughout their time together. Up until their latest albums, Hynde has still found ways to twist her rock and roll narrative in ways that no one had heard before, either using a few chords no one was expecting or making the kind of music that could tear your heart out. Every musician has their days when there’s no inspiration, but anyone who ever needs to be reminded of the power of rock and roll owes it to themselves to listen to Hynde’s music.
