one of my favorite handful of pop artists, chrissie hynde, is very back. (i tried to say in the linked entry why i love the music, insofar as one can say such a thing, so i won't repeat it all.) this is her "first solo album" (well, the last was attributed to "chrissie and the fairground boys"), but though i'm sure that collaboration has been important to her, chrissie hynde has always been a solo act.
the fairground boys album (fidelity) was interesting in various ways, more rootsrock than her usual mode. actually, that's true of break up the concrete (the last album attributed to the pretenders) as well. but i guess after living with it for awhile i kind of let it go with a bit of diappointment; i wasn't necessarily completely feeling her man of that moment, 'jp', with whom she dueted on fidelity, the only real non-solo moment in the recording career). the new one, stockholm, is extremely good. "you're the one", e.g., started running chronically through my head after i previewed it for 30 seconds on itunes. the album has all the strengths of her best work, i think, and several songs that stand up well within her repertoire, which is one of the great collections of songs and recordings in the pop music of the last several decades.
oooh that one is good. nice tribute to austin, too, including mw's old gym.
janie is always puzzled by the way i use 'pop', which she uses to mean hyper-commercial teen-oriented dancy stuff, "pure pop", like katy perry, say. in other words 'pop' is a particular genre, as opposed to hip hop or country, for example (though there can be 'pop country' or 'pop hip hop' in this sense of 'pop'.) i basically mean 'popular' or all non-high-art music, so more or less everything but "classical" and maybe post-bop jazz. art music should be repressed, with mortar shells or napalm if that's what it takes.
