The Pretenders singer’s debut solo album to feature Neil Young and John McEnroe

Six years after the last Pretenders album, Chrissie Hynde’s first solo venture, entitled Stockholm, will be released on 9 June. Recorded at Ingrid Studios in Stockholm with Peter Bjorn and John‘s Björn Yttling, Hynde aimed to pen a “power pop album” that sounds something like “Abba meets John Lennon”, she explains in a statement.

Aside from her collaboration with Yttling, the album includes two friends of the Pretenders’ singer: the track Down the Wrong Way features Neil Young on guitar, and A Plan Too Far includes the fretwork of tennis legend John McEnroe. “When I first met Björn, I walked into his studio and noticed a tennis racket in there, he loves tennis, and I told him I knew John McEnroe,” says Chrissie. “I was trying to impress him, and Swedes are very stoic, you can’t get a rise out of them very easily. But I hit the spot when I told him I knew McEnroe.”

Stockholm follows the Pretenders’ 2008 album Break Up the Concrete, and Hynde’s collaborative record with Welsh singer JP Jones, named Fidelity. The album, she says, focuses on the upbeat elements of rock music. “So much of rock’n’roll has become what I would call Glory Rock, with family values. It’s the irreverence in rock that was always the turn-on. I disagree with people who say you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously. I think life is serious, and you should take it seriously, but in rock’n’roll either have a fucking laugh or fuck off. ‘Stockholm’ is very danceable,” adds Chrissie.

There will be 11 tracks on the album and its first single will be Dark Sunglasses, released on 21 April.

Source: The Guardian