Pretenders — Brass In Pocket

JUL 01 1979 · 12:00

Pretenders — Brass In Pocket (1979) Director: Mark Robinson Era: Post-Punk / New Wave Dawn (1979) - Transitional moment between UK punk's collapse and the MTV-era music video boom; filmed on the cusp of the 1980s as British rock reinvented itself around charismatic frontpeople and cinematic promo clips. Exceptional archival and pedagogical value. This is among the most historically significant promotional films of the pre-MTV era: a confirmed MTV launch video, a chart-topping UK cultural artefact, and a documented site of artist-director creative conflict that illuminates power dynamics in early music video production. The warm-toned, low-contrast film aesthetic is a near-perfect time capsule of 1979 British location filmmaking. Essential for any retrospective on New Wave, early MTV, or gender in popular media. Context: Released in November 1979 and reaching UK #1 in January 1980, 'Brass in Pocket' sits at the hinge between British punk's dissolution and the New Wave's commercial consolidation. The Pretenders — fronted by American-born, London-adopted Chrissie Hynde — embodied the transatlantic fusion that would define early MTV programming. When the network launched in August 1981, this video became one of its first seven broadcasts, partly because American acts had not yet adopted the promo format. The café setting in North Kensington grounds the video in British social-realist tradition, while the pink American car introduces an ironic Americana counterpoint. The tension between Hynde's lyrical self-assurance and her passive, weeping visual role generated lasting critical discourse about gender representation in early music video, with Hynde herself publicly distancing herself from the director's narrative choices. Director notes: Filmed on location in North Kensington, London, at the café on the intersection of Middle Row and Southern Row. The video's narrative — Hynde as a lovelorn waitress ignored by her bandmates who arrive in a pink American car with their partners — was reportedly divergent from Hynde's original concept, in which the band was to arrive on motorcycles and she would escape on the back of one. Robinson's ending, leaving Hynde weeping as the group drives away, directly contradicted Hynde's empowerment-framed vision for the clip. Hynde publicly criticised the directorial decision in multiple interviews. The video was later noted as among the first seven videos aired on MTV at its launch on 1 August 1981, and has been cited as an early example of narrative-driven UK promo filmmaking. Copyright credited to Sire Records, 1979.