Pretenders - Pretenders II (35th anniversary)

Today (August 15th) marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of Pretenders II, the second studio album from the Pretenders. This 1981 record spent nineteen weeks on the US Billboard Album chart where it peaked at the number 10 spot.

For my full review, click here.

For more from the Pretenders, click here.

Pretenders - Pretenders (35th anniversary)

Today (January 19th) marks the thirty fifth anniversary of the 1980 self-titled debut album from the British new-wave band the Pretenders. The record went to number 24 in Norway, number 14 in the Netherlands, number 9 on the US Billboard Album chart (it has a seventy-eight week total run on the chart), number 2 in New Zealand and Sweden, and number 1 in the UK.

For my full review, click here.

Pretenders - Pretenders II

After the release of their self-titled debut, there was a lot of interest in a follow-up record from the Pretenders. Early in 1981, they released a five song EP that included two singles made popular in the UK. Those singles then became the foundation of their second full-length album aptly entitled Pretenders II released in August of 1981.

While the record was a top-10 seller in parts of the world (number 10 in the US, number 9 in Canada and number 7 in the UK), it didn’t sell nearly as well as their debut had. It took twenty years for the album to reach a Gold level of sales in the US.

Pretenders - Pretenders

The 1980 debut album by the British new-wave band the Pretenders was a main-staple of the album rock stations growing up and rightly so. Chrissie Hynde and company came out of the gate with guitars a blazing, kick-starting the decade in just the right way. The album appears on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and their 100 Greatest Albums of the Eighties. It also appears on "the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" list.