You will notice that one of the great album openers of all time (to one of the great album sides of all time) actually starts with a spot of in-studio chipmunk chatter in the periphery. That only makes it greater. Every detail about this simply makes it greater. It's just a little rock 'n' roll song of three and a half minutes, but it somehow moves with great natural force like a gleaming streamlined bullet train at night, massive, traveling a great distance, capable of tremendous speed. It throbs with potency, swaggers and slinks about the cloistered space of sound it creates. It stops, pops, shifts about. It works up skintight grooves and bursts them at will with showers of sparking, churning sound. The band is locked in place. Songwriter / singer Chrissie Hynde makes her mocking points, couched in an ocean of sexuality, every fiber posing a familiar proposition, one thing alone on the mind of this song: "I was feeling kind of ethereal 'cos I'm precious / I had my eye on your imperial you're so precious ... Made me wanna, made me wanna, you made me make it / Oh, you're so mean." Such a great first impression, such a great way to start. It sets the tone for an album that will explore more of the nuances and repercussions of the liaisons, locates the emotional origins in Cleveland, and explodes when moved to do so, among other things showing off one of the most delicious toss-away declarations of "fuck off" to be heard anywhere ever. It's so fun when new artists are this good, and it still sounds new to these ears even allowing that it is nearly 35 years old now.
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