With sundry deaths and other changes of bandmates over the years, "Last of the Independents" proves decisively that The Pretenders equals Chrissie Hynde and vice-versa. Hynde displays an equal and formidable strength, as always, for concise but telling lyrics mixed with the Pretenders' signature guitar work. The guitars alone are worth buying the album--listen for the glittery crashing sound on "Night in My Veins", the eerily subdued guitars throughout "Hollywood Perfume" (which sound as though they were played by ghosts in a wind tunnel), the tornado snarl that cracks open "Rebel Rock Me" (on which she variously channels Buddy Holly, k. d. lang, and Dwight Yoakam), and the Stones-inspired beginning of "Money Talk." How bold Hynde is to entitle a song "Revolution"--but we know by now that she is nothing if not bold, and her "Revolution" holds its own with its world-famous Beatles counterpart though they are nothing alike. "Revolution" has the same dreamlike quality of the long-ago "2,000 miles" and Hynde makes the intriguing choice of making her revolution quietly urgent instead of shouting for attention. On the very short "Tequila" Hynde allows herself to sound bedraggled, weary--as though she were singing in a nearly empty bar at 2:00 AM. There is not a single bad song on the album--indeed, there is nothing even approaching mediocre or average. Every song is a stand-out, and it's one of the crimes of the current music world that this album didn't get wider attention upon its release in 1994.