Pretenders Greatest Hits

The Pretenders Greatest Hits is a selection of 20 songs and their variously successful videos. Chrissie Hynde arrived in the UK in 1973, and after a period as the "Loud Yank" NME journalist, she realised her dream of putting a band together. "Stop Your Sobbing" was a terrific first single for The Pretenders, debuting a voice that defied comparison or description. Naturally it's included here. Chrissie hated the early videos for her songs, especially "Brass in Pocket", which was one of the very first shown on MTV. She relays this sort of information to camera in the terrific documentary, "No Turn Left Unstoned", featured on this DVD. Comments come in from Rosanna Arquette, ex-managers, Elvis Costello, Bono, and her oldest friend.

The Pretenders' 1987 collection, The Singles, did a fine job of assembling most of the group's finest tracks up to that point in their career, so after another decade passed, their record company felt it was necessary to compile a more "updated" collection, 2000's Euro-only release Greatest Hits. Although it contains a total of 20 tracks, Greatest Hits ultimately fails to improve over its predecessor, for the simple fact that the early '80s was the Pretenders' artistic and commercial peak, and Greatest Hits contains too much latter-day material. Whereas it would have been a wise move to showcase such oft-overlooked classics as "Tattooed Love Boys," "Mystery Achievement," "Precious," "My City Was Gone," or "Birds of Paradise" (all of which weren't included on The Singles), Greatest Hits includes such not-as-strong selections as "Night in My Veins," "Breakfast in Bed," and "Human" instead. Although there are quite a few gems included ("Brass in Pocket," "Message of Love," "Talk of the Town," "Kid," "Back on the Chain Gang," etc.), Greatest Hits leaves out far too many prime selections to be considered truly definitive.

The Greatest Xmas Songs is an excellent collection of the most beautiful Christmas songs of all time. From the '60s you'll find classics from The Pointer Sisters, The Beach Boys and Elvis Presley on the record. During the '70s and '80s, some iconic Christmas hits were released by Chris Rea, Mud, Band Aid, Paul McCartney, and Queen, among others. Includes the festive Xmas hits from Queen, Coldplay, U2, José Feliciano, Paul McCartney, Elton John, The Pretenders, Chris Rea, Band Aid, Mud, Kylie Minogue, Justin Bieber & Mariah Carey, John & Yoko, Spice Girls, Rod Stewart, Elvis Presley, Slade, and many more songs.