Pat Benatar; Genre - Pop
Pat Benatar"s polished mainstream pop/rock made her one of the more popular female vocalists of the early "80s. Although she came on like an arena rocker with her power chords, tough sexuality and powerful vocals, her music was straight pop/rock underneath all the bluster.
Benatar began singing in New York in the late "70s; eventually she was discovered by Rick Newman at his "Catch a Rising Star" club in 1979. Under the management of Newman, Benatar signed with Chrysalis Records, releasing her debut album, In the Heat of the Night , that same year. The record launched her string of hit singles with the number 23 "Heartbreaker." Featuring the Top Ten hit "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," Benatar"s second album, 1980"s Crimes of Passion was a greater success, selling over four million copies and winning the
Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Her third album, Precious
Time (1981), reached number one on the album charts; a single from the album called "Fire and Ice" won Benatar another Grammy. She married her producer/guitarist Neil Geraldo in 1982, the same year the platinum Get Nervous was released. Benatar released a live album, Live from Earth , the following year; it contained one of her biggest hits, "Love Is a Battlefield."
Although 1984"s Tropico contained her biggest hit "We Belong" (number five), the album was her lowest-charting to date.
"Invincible" (1985), taken from The Legend of Billie Jean soundtrack, was her last Top Ten hit. Even though it included the hit single "Sex as a Weapon," Benatar"s Seven the Hard Way (1985) became her first album not to go platinum -- it didn"t even go gold.
She took a couple of years off before returning with Wide Awake in Dreamland in 1988; it didn"t chart as high as Seven the Hard Way , yet it earned a gold record, as did Best Shots, a greatest-hits collection released the following year.
Benatar didn't record a new album until 1991, when she released the blues record, True Love . It proved a critical and commercial disaster, prompting her to return to her mainstream rock on 1993"s Gravity"s Rainbow ; nevertheless, the reversal in musical direction didn"t return her to the top of the charts.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All-Music
