This song goes through my head every time I see another Marjorie Taylor Greene/Lauren Boebert clickbait headline.
In an alternate universe, Holly Beth Vincent had a career like Chrissie Hynde’s. Like the Ohio-born Hynde, Vincent, a Chicago native, got her big break after moving to the UK. In 1979, the same year the Pretenders released their first singles, Vincent’s Los Angeles punk band moved to London and released this single, which landed them a contract with Virgin Records and an opening slot on American tours of the Ramones and the Clash.
Like Hynde, who got romantically involved with Ray Davies, Vincent hooked up with Mark Knopfler, and the relationship ended badly — you can hear all about it in Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet.” But where Hynde found a fantastic sideman in James Honeyman-Scott, Vincent couldn’t keep a band together. And while the Pretenders’ jangly guitars jibed with the ’80s vibe, Vincent’s gritty pop-punk was both behind and ahead of its time.
It didn’t help that it took a full year after the single dropped to record and release her first album, “The Right to Be Italian,” which was panned by critics when it finally arrived. Here’s a representative cut.
The album flopped, her bandmates quit, and Vincent had to use hired hands to record the ersatz band’s second, and last, album. Both LPs have become popular with fans of grrl-power pop-punk.
Dropped by her label, Vincent ran through a long list of short-term gigs — a brief stint in the Waitresses, an album with Johnnette Napolitano — and in recent years has released electro-dance music under the name Yilohas. This cut from her 2012 album “Super Rocket Star,” released under her own name, foreshadows the switch. She played all the instruments on the self-produced LP.
