"Save them for someone's death." For "Biker," she revisits her beloved "Tattooed Love Boys" with exquisite tenderness. "Why did you send me roses?" asks Hynde on the latter. Fortunately, the woman can write a pop song, both "Nails in the Road" and "Baby's Breath" boasting her trademark brittle sentiment. Hynde's classic crunching pop is in place with the radio-friendly "Human" and "Who's Who," but on the otherwise lovely "Rabo de Nube," even though she can trill because she's always had that great vibrato in her voice, her Spanish accent is dreadful.
Slow, dreamy numbers like "From the Heart Down," "Samurai," and "One More Time" (which plays like a tribute to Janis Joplin) belie their author's leathery exterior. It's especially evident on the numerous love songs that abound, such as the ethereal "Dragway 42," a straight-up love song just like Hynde - no doubt a total romantic who probably reads love stories in secret. On her latest, first-generation Pretenders drummer Martin Chambers, guitarist Adam Seymour, and a revolving group of backup players, singers, and guests including David Johansen and Jeff Beck stand behind her for the dozen tracks of ¡Viva el Amor! The songs are reminiscent enough of her most memorable tunes to have that reassuring ring of familiarity, but it's her voice that's in such fine form here. Like Lucinda Williams, she's unapologetic for the paucity of recordings, preferring quality to quantity.
To show for her 20 years of recording, Hynde and an ever-changing cadre of sidemen have seven studio albums plus a greatest hits package and a live CD. It does, naturally - would you expect anything less from Chrissie Hynde? She's the original tough girl of new wave and punk, neither as self-consciously arty as Patti Smith nor as endearingly slutty as Debbie Harry she's kept up by not keeping up. Here's to Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders for picking up the challenge in equally stunning turns of pop and rock on ¡Viva el Amor! Since the mouthy Miss Hynde was never one to mince words or riffs, she nails Nineties pop right out of the gate with the killer licks of "Popstar," and you wonder if the rest of the album will recover. Punk-era new wavesters Blondie took the challenge earlier this year, anteing up two decades after the fact by delivering No Exit with flying colors. It's become a musical gauntlet to run, the last chance to make a statement about the century that spawned rock & roll and everything after.