I'm rating this CD with 5 stars for one reason: Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde is rock-and-roll. However, note the title of this collection : "Greatest Hits." This is definitely not "Best Songs" or even "Representative Songs." This is about the radio hits. Any Pretenders fan will tell you a true "Greatest" collection will include: "Mystery Achievement," "Tattooed Love Boys," "English Roses," "Bad Boys Get Spanked," "Louie Louie," "Pack it Up," "My City was Gone," "Thumbelina," "Roomful of Mirrors," "Cuban Slide," "Love Colors," "Dragway 42," and, most recently, the great cover of Neil Young's "Needle and the Damage Done." (Another recent cut also highly recommended: Chrissie Hynde and Pretenders guitarist Adam Seymour performing Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" on the tribute CD "Badlands.") All this being said, every Pretenders fanatic will need to add this to their collection. And hey, you will never get tired of hearing "Talk of the Town."

Sorry, for me this collection doesn't do Chrisse Hynde and The Pretenders justice as the great ... rock n roll band that they are. I'm not surprised or anything. These "Greatest Hits" packages are almost always geared towards making a band look like easy going sellouts.

The hard facts are that THE PRETENDERS had enough kutzpah and swagger to hang with the likes of AC/DC and The Stones.

Unfortunately, this collection (although containg a number of fine songs), completely misses the point of THE PRETENDERS as the great ROCK band that they are.

Please, opt to buy the first few studio albums and listen to Chrissie's ... attitude on gems like "PRECIOUS", "THE WAIT", "MYSTERY ACHIEVEMENT", "MY CITY WAS GONE" or "THE ADULTRESS." These great songs not only feature Chrissie's bid as one of rock n roll's very finest female artists but they also feature some of the best angst riddled guitar riffs, energized melodies and pounding rhythms in rock history.

To anyone not familiar with THE PRETENDERS and who considers themselves a "ROCKER", please avoid this collection and purchase those wonderful studio albums: PRETENDERS, PRETENDERS II & LEARNING TO CRAWL. You'll have a much more clear picture of this great band after listening.

If you just want some nice, safe radio songs then I guess this collection is for you.

Personally, I would "WAIT" for a better set(one that really shows the band's swagger as well as their pop craft) and I think Chrissie would agree.

M.L.

Hey, when I was 18, and the Pretenders first album came out, I thought it was the coolest album in the world, and I played it to death. Now, almost 30 years later, this collection is the Pretenders sound for me, a more mellow, older, wiser sound that suits Chrissie Hynde just fine. Chrissie's sound has matured into middle-age with grace and class, and the music here represents that more mature sound very well. Truthfully, as a middle-ager myself, at this point in my life I can relate to a song like "I'll Stand By You" a lot more than I can a song like "Precious" anyways. I'll bet Chrissie would agree.

After hearing a radio show on the Pretenders I realized the huge hole in my music library caused by having no album from this prolific band. I signed in to Amazon and spent much of the evening listening to samples and reading reviews of each album. I ordered this album even though many music snobs stated that doing so is selling out to the punk roots of the Pretenders; I respectfully disagree. What this album does is serve as an exemplar of the many stages that this great band has gone through during their long and fruitful career. It creates a complete picture better than most one album sets and is cheaper than buying six different albums. For most people this is the best value and thus the best buy from the Pretenders.

I really don't listen to a lot of my favorite bands from the '80s so much nowadays but one of the few bands from my adolescent that I still listen to is The Pretenders. Their music is a melodic mix of pop and punk. Chrissie Hyndes still sounds as good now as she did when I first heard her as a child. I personally think the band's GREATEST HITS cd is very good even if they didn't include one of my favorite songs "Revolution". I definitely think that GREATEST HITS is vastly superior over the band's singles compilation due to production and that the collection includes some of their more recent material from the '90s. My personal favorite Pretenders song will always be the beautiful ballad "Hymn to Her". That song always moves me. Love the pop hooks. I initially never cared much for "Brass in Pocket" (which I have heard that it is Chrissie Hynde's least favorite song) but as I get older, the song has really grown on me. I love the opening line and the beat. The only two songs I don't particularly care for on the compilation is the duets with UB40. I never liked UB40 to begin with. The songs were rubbish to me. Overall great compilation by one of my favorite bands of my childhood.