The Pretenders - Windows of the World - Non-Album Tracks (1986-1988)

Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders released a new solo album earlier this month, called "Value Bone Woe." I really like it. It's different than her usual stuff, going in a kind of jazzy chanteuse direction. I suggest you check it out.

Here's another album of stray tracks from the Pretenders in honor of her new release. From this point on, I'll be treating the Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde as essentially one and the same, because all the original members of the Pretenders were gone from the band, and it became Hynde plus a group of backing musicians. Also from this point on, she did a fair amount of recordings and performances under her own name.

The first three Pretenders albums are undeniable classics, in my book. This album deals with the time of the band's fourth album, 1986's "Get Close." That album was widely considered a step down, being seen as overproduced and not rocking enough. I have to agree with that critique, even though it still has a lot of good songs on it. Happily, the stray tracks from this time don't suffer those same problems.

This is around the time Hynde starting appearing in concert billed as herself instead of part of the Pretenders. She only performed a few songs here and there, but she played some unexpected songs instead of the usual Pretenders numbers. Four of the songs here come from her appearance at a benefit concert in early 1986. Another three are acoustic duets she did in concert with Elvis Costello. For all the live performances, I removed the audience noise to make them fit in with the other songs. Generally speaking, all the live songs are the only officially unreleased ones, but they sound very good.

I think all the songs but one are covers. The one exception is "Worlds Within Worlds." That was a bonus track for the "Get Close" album. "Reconsider Me" sounds a lot like a Hynde original, but it actually was written by Warren Zevon.

This is a very electric album, ranging from a cover of the proto punk rock song "1969" to the acoustic duets with Costello, plus a fair amount of reggae. Personally, I like this as much or more as "Get Close," because it doesn't suffer from the usual 1980s production issues.

Oh, by the way, this includes two versions of "Windows of the World," the classic anti-war song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Normally, I'm loathe to include two versions of the same song on one album, but I'm making an exception here because the two versions are quite different. One is a full band, album-ready version, and the other is one of the acoustic duets in concert with Costello.

01 Reconsider Me (Pretenders)
02 Worlds within Worlds (Pretenders)
03 Little Latin Lupe Lu (Chrissie Hynde)
04 In My Life (Chrissie Hynde)
05 Property of Jesus (Chrissie Hynde)
06 Give It Up (Annie Lennox & Chrissie Hynde)
07 Where Has Everybody Gone (Pretenders)
08 Windows of the World (Pretenders)
09 1969 (Pretenders)
10 Steppin' Razor (Chrissie Hynde with Coati Mundi, Sly & Robbie)
11 Breakfast in Bed (UB40 & Chrissie Hynde)
12 Days (Elvis Costello & Chrissie Hynde)
13 There's a Place (Elvis Costello & Chrissie Hynde)
14 Windows of the World [Live Acoustic] (Elvis Costello & Chrissie Hynde)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700870/TPRETNDRS1986-1988_WindwsoWrld_atse.zip.html

For the album cover photo, I used a photo of Hynde in concert with the Pretenders in 1987.