Thursday, October 05, 2006

Pretenders II

After yesterday's piece on the Pretenders' reissues you had to know there would be a second helping, and today I am happy to oblige. Their second album, 1981's Pretenders II, came out hot on the heels of the debut. It was a further refinement of their sound, and it saw them become chart regulars with the fabulous hit songs Message Of Love and Talk Of The Town. It also has some of Chrissie's hottest rocker goddess moments - The Adultress and Bad Boys Get Spanked come to mind! Then there is the stone cold classic ballad I Go To Sleep, which send shivers down my spine every time I hear her cracking vocals. Today's choices are all from the bonus disc, and are all previously unreleased. Talk Of The Town (Demo) is a slightly softer versioon that almost has a disco feel in the drums and rhythm guitar parts. I Go To Sleep (Guitar Version - Outtake) has a much harder electric guitar playing the glorious melody line - I can see why they went with the version without it, but it's interesting to hear nonetheless. Still as gorgeous as ever tho'. Pack It Up (Radio Mix - Outtake) is essentially an instrumental version of this hard rocking tune - all of the riffs and lots of radio interference. How tight is this shit?

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