Rhinofy-Pat Benatar Primer
Jett Schmett. Girls wanted to be PAT BENATAR!
The story is always the same, if you’re good-looking you get no credit.
Now I’m not saying we need to have sympathy for the beautiful, although being good-looking is a sentence, something you think you want but don’t really, but the truth is if you’re an attractive female singer you get no respect from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Waiting decades to induct Linda Ronstadt? And then there’s Joan Jett, member of a failed band overhyped by the dearly departed Kim Fowley, who ultimately had a couple of hits, and she’s lionized and Benatar’s been forgotten… IT’S UNFAIR!
HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT
Fire away!
I start here, because it’s where Pat Benatar became a star, known by EVERYBODY!
You come on with a ‘come on’
You don’t fight fair
But that’s okay, see if I care
ATTITUDE! That’s what Pat Benatar was delivering. Talk about girl power, forget the punks from later decades, it’s Benatar who empowered young women. But she doesn’t get credit because she wasn’t unattractive with a bad voice singing about her plight. Rather, Benatar had power, she owned her life, and people just couldn’t get enough of her.
I NEED A LOVER
It’s really all about the first album, produced by Peter Coleman and Mike Chapman at MCA Whitney studios. It had so many good tracks I had to run out and buy it. And the key cut was this, a cover of a John Mellencamp song before the man from Indiana became a star.
And if you go back and listen to Cougar’s version (that’s what he was called back then), you’ll see it has magic but Benatar’s version is a triumph. The thrown-off attitude with an element of sincerity, it’s the definition of “infectious.”
And isn’t that what we all need, A LOVER WHO WON’T DRIVE US CRAZY?!
HEARTBREAKER
You’re a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don’t you mess around with me
With enough balls for the notoriously male-centric AOR radio to embrace, it was this that led off the album and cemented Benatar’s reputation, demonstrated that she’d arrived.
You’re the right kind of sinner
To release my inner fantasy
Males were Benatar’s initial fans. They wanted more of…THIS!
WE LIVE FOR LOVE
Written by Benatar’s guitar player and eventual husband Neil Giraldo, this is the track that made me buy the album. “We Live For Love” was a girl group-styled track by someone with the pipes to hit all the notes. We all have a soft spot for well-done pop, catchy songs that have us tapping our toe that make us feel good. “We Live For Love” may not have burned up the radio, but it ignited me!
IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO LOVE ME
A hit for Smokie overseas, a band that never made it in the U.S., it’s the vocal, especially in the chorus, that puts this over the top.
So if you think you know how to love me
And you think you know what I need
And if you really, really want me to stay
You’ve got to lead the way
Hey, I can learn something from this!
YOU BETTER RUN
The debut announced Benatar’s arrival, it was a hit, but it was her second, “Crimes Of Passion,” that made her a star.
Of course, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was the monster. But this cover of the Young Rascals’ hit was nearly as ubiquitous.
A great song is a great song, never forget it!
HELL IS FOR CHILDREN
The press hook was child abuse, just like Little Big Town is employing lesbianism to break “Girl Crush,” but the truth is both records stand on their own, the press is irrelevant. This is a dark, hypnotic track no matter what it’s about.
TREAT ME RIGHT
Like its predecessor, “Crimes Of Passion” began with a killer, a tear that announced Benatar meant business.
This was a radio staple, and deservedly so.
Furthermore, Benatar’s initial album was released in 1979, pre-MTV. And even though “Crimes Of Passion” came out in August 1980, a full year before the launch of the music video service, “You Better Run” was the second video MTV aired. And Benatar was all over the channel. Because Chrysalis believed in video, they had the clips, and, needless to say, Pat Benatar was photogenic.
FIRE AND ICE
There was no national radio station, not everybody had been subjected to Pat Benatar, but now that MTV was here and growing Benatar’s act could be seen throughout the land and despite the albums declining in quality, a hit like “Fire And Ice” could suddenly be bigger than anything ever before.
Insiders realized this immediately. Duran Duran’s expensive videos got all the press a few years later, but anybody with a clip on MTV suddenly saw record sales jump, they could play to a full house nearly everywhere, it was a new golden era.
Ooh, you’re givin’ me the fever tonight
It was the dynamics that put “Fire And Ice” over the top. It started off so quiet and intimate and meaningful and then…
Fire and ice, you come on like a flame
Then you turn a cold shoulder
Fire and ice, I wanna give you my love
But you’ll just take a little piece of my heart
You’ll just tear it apart
But it gets even better. There’s a bridge!
So you think you’ve got it all figured out
You’re an expert in the field without a doubt
But I know your methods inside and out
And I won’t be taken in by fire and ice
And then a screaming guitar solo.
Produced by Keith Olsen and Neil Giraldo, “Fire And Ice” is a tour-de-force!
PROMISES IN THE DARK
Starting off quietly and then exploding, this Giraldo and Benatar cowrite opened up the album “Precious Time” on a high note. Benatar was playing by the rules, the rules of rock and commercialism, give us your best shot FIRST!
SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby take my hand, it’ll be all right
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
Gives me chills.
With Peter Coleman back in the picture, “Shadows Of The Night” is an everything but the kitchen sink production, there’s no restraint after the a cappella intro, just more, more, MORE! Listen to those pounding drums, that army of guitars!
And you remember the video, with Pat as a factory worker who ultimately flies off to save the world… It was 1982, performance clips were history, and Benatar was leading the way. “Shadows Of The Night” got incessant video play, Pat was on a victory lap nonpareil, back when all the excitement was in music, when even oldsters tuned in to MTV to see what was going on.
It was 1982, teen movies still moved the needle, “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” included a Benatar reference, Pat was a cultural icon!
LITTLE TOO LATE
Just works. Listen.
LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD
A studio track tacked on to a live album, this was the video that proved Pat Benatar couldn’t dance.
Well, it wasn’t that she was bad, but just that she wasn’t great, she was executing scripted choreography whilst concentrating so hard that she lost all soul.
Maybe this is where we started to go wrong, when singing was no longer enough.
But having said that, “Love Is A Battlefield” was a gigantic hit, the clip was an MTV staple, and while girls were perfecting the moves, boys couldn’t get enough of Pat shaking it.
WE BELONG
The last hurrah. There were further chart records, like “Invincible,” “Sex As A Weapon” and “All Fired Up,” but by that point Benatar was running on fumes, she’d strayed from what she once was, a simple hit machine, the material was not as consistent, and the audience knew it and moved on…to hair bands, to Michael Jackson and ultimately rap.
But she had a good long run.
And she’s still out there doing it, the female Bon Jovi. Who had help writing his hits too.
Then again, we never quite knew who Pat Benatar was. This was pre-internet, we knew about her vocal training, but she kept giving props to her husband/guitarist when she was the star and then they both kinda faded away…
And I can’t say their music has radiated.
But if you were there then, if you know these tracks, you know how big Benatar was. Not only big enough to influence women’s looks in “Fast Times,” but so big that when you hear her music you’re brought right back to then.
And isn’t that what music does best? Mark our lives, remind us of who we once were and ultimately still want to be?
