Pirate Radio (2006)

Drummer Martin Chambers once remarked that his Pretenders boss Chrissie Hynde was easy to get along with...as long as you did what she said. In part, then, this excellent career-spanning four-CD/one-DVD boxed set stands as a tribute to benevolent dictatorship. But mostly, Pirate Radio confirms the band's trump card to be Hynde's seductively in-control voice: Whether performing self-penned pop-rock gems (''Brass in Pocket,'' ''Talk of the Town'') or covers (Morrissey's ''Everyday Is Like Sunday,'' a live version of Radiohead's ''Creep''), it has remained, down the decades, as cool and unchanging as her haircut.