4 Arts Page 10 Saturday, June 20, 1981 The Michigan Daily X's 'Wild Gift' The Pretenders The Pretenders-'Extended Play' (Warner Bros.) For the most part, great rock 'n roll has been produced by men. There really have never been any great female rockers. So when I heard the first Pretenders' record last year, I was stunned. Not only did the band manage a wonderful synthesis of heavy metal and soul, but frontwoman Chrissie Hynde seemed a brilliant songwriter and a fantastic singer. But before I began to salivate, I checked myself. "They can't be this good," I repeated over and over (subconsciously remembering how Pat- ti Smith had let me down), and a few of the throwaways on the album helped me- maintain cynical disbelief. So I decided to adopt a policy of wait and see. Well, I'm happy to report that this five-track E.P. leaves no ground for doubts of any kind. It is flat out great from beginning to end and it makes it quite clear that Chrissie Hynde is not only the best white female singer in the history of rock and roll, but a diverse songwriter with a sure grasp of song structure ana melody. SIDE ONE OPENS with "Message of Love," which mates an off-beat riff ETEN~Er EXTEN'(EV hLA'( with a melody from pop heaven-a positively inspired cut. "Talk of the Town" is a piece of whimsy with a gorgeous 12-string arrangement. "Porcelain" is a mostly instrumental tune that manages to sound like a heavy metal B-52s without being funny. As if all this wasn't enough, the Pretenders have almost single-handedly rejuvenated heavy metal by injecting it with the blues sensuality that first made it a potent style. Side two, which is more or less heavy metal, is the sexiest music placed on vinyl since the heyday of the Rolling Stones ("Midnight Rambler," "Brown Sugar," "Stray Cat Blues"). It opens with "Cuban Slide," the definitive sociological examination of Spanish dance in American culture, and closes with a revelatory live version of "Precious"-the title describes it perfectly. So what we have here is the best possible introduction to the best rock band now before the public. If all of this sounds too good to be true, just invest in this five-song E.P. (only $3.99), and you'll see what I mean. -Ken Feldman T~flhI~h~i"Needs ride tout of town? Check the 4a iltV classifieds under. transportation X-'Wild Gift' (Slash)-They're creepy, they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ookie - meet John \ Doe and Exene, the heart and soul of X and the Morticia and Gomez of Sunset Strip. Their first album, Los Angeles, was a lowrider's cruise through the cobwebs and brambles of that most tor- tured of cities. Fun & Games & Fun & Games & Fun stretched end-to-end throughout the record, leaving the listener wondering about what kind of fun really is and, what kind scars you for life. X walked through the vaporous Los Angeles night with a flashlight in front of them, caustically recording whatever they stumbled upon. On Wild Gift, X stares down the decay once again, but also plays hanging something illicit, experiencing carnal judge. Full of exuberant hard-rock evil, yet viewing it from a distance suf- guitar and melodies that open up like a ficient to pass judgment on it. letter bomb, Wild Gift puts up a mean Ultimately it all becomespeep-show fight to maintain some dignity in a pandering, trafficking in stereotypes bleached-out city, about the irresistibly bad girl. THE SONGS are shattered fragments The passion of "Adult Books" is ap- - partly beatnik wordplay and partly preciated, but lines like "Singles rule overheard talk from a bus station or a the world/feeding on fresh blood" point bedroom - everyday stuff made vital out the smugness that hovers around by the language and the passion of the X's outlook on love. Whereas some of delivery. When Exene wails about her the post-punk groups from Britain take life being "marked down in the fragments from romantic situations basement ... a life of intermission" and examine all of the surfaces, X it's as if her low-budget angst has restricts the options by passing quick helped keep her sane; in a world where and easy judgments you can't get away from the hard BUT IF THE outlook on Wild Gift is knocks and walking nightmares, she at times limiting, the songs themselves can only roll all the contradictions and the delivery are wildly expansive. around in her head and construct a Time and again Billy Zoom laces into makeshift morality to protect herself, the melodies like Reggie Jackson The morality makes for the best and leaning into a fat pitch. D.J. Bonebreak worst moments on Wild Gift. X outlines never tries anything fancy, which is a subworld of drunken rendezvous, why his successes are so astounding - despairing betrayals, and flat-broke his drumming is a comment on the beat worries. "We're Desperate" spells it as much as it is a statement of it. And out perfectly, its stop-and-go punk most of all there is the singing of Exene guitar putting teeth into the cynical and John Doe, hovering over the humor of the lyrics. It's a two-minute melody like a couple of Pterodactyls visit to the middle-class consumer circling their prey. playpen: "It's kiss or kill/coca-cola / & "There's nothing wrong with a Motorola kitchen / Nauga-hyde / & a Southern California that a rise in the tie-dye shirt./Last night/ everything ocean level wouldn't cure," Ross Mac- broke." Donald once said. Wild Gift is X's In such a crappy setting John and poison-pen letter to a rough life, in Exene (husband and wife) lean on each Southern California and elsewhere, a other. Solid songs like "When Our Love nasty little wish that the big waves Passed Out on the Couch" and "Some come soon. The strategies they have Other Time" spell out their love as their devised for living in the anonymous salvation. Love and infidelity circle megalopolis may on occasion be around each other throughout the suspect, but their honesty and passion album, every line full of funky, off-key never are. Wild Gift is an album to play realism, over and over, a show of will and hard STILL, it's hard to listen to Delta 5's noise that makes it just a little bit "Try" or the Au Pairs' "It's Obvious" easier for one to think up his or her own and then care too much about X's ideas schemata for individuality. about relationships. Love doesn't seem to just bring John and Exene together RI. Smith - it separates them with a vengeance from the rest of the world. And their feelings about sex are har- Be an angel . dly avant-garde. These notions are in the great Southern California tradition of Raymond Chandler, Hollywood Babylon, and the Eagles. There must be something in the reservoirs out there, something which attaches heightened seediness and smug moralizations to the act of fucking. X pours light onto tawdry love scenes, peeps into the bedroom windows of un- faithful lovers with a jaded cynicism that is too easy to affect these days. Their "White Girl" at first feels almost as deliciously steamy as "Bette Read Davis Eyes," and for much the same 764-0558 reason:. - We.. feel. .we'r.e.tasting .. 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4