Pat Benatar - Love Is a Battlefield

“Linda, that girl looks just like Pat Benatar!”

“I know. Wait. There are three girls at Ridgemont… who have cultivated the Pat Benatar look”

(from the film “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” – “Fuori di testa”, 1982)

Before being cruelly relegated to the “kitsch” category, with the consequent condemnation to oblivion by snobbish critics, Pat Benatar was for a long time one of the most beloved and talented singers in American rock. As a vocalist and performer first and foremost, but also through a series of songs that, poised between hard rock, AOR and pop, represented a joyful creative era, helping to revive an aggressive, winning female role model in a historically male-dominated environment. A positive streak lasting roughly a decade, between the late '70s and the second half of the '80s, ideally marked by the various Grammys brought home (four consecutive wins for “Best Female Rock Vocal Performance” from 1980 to 1983, plus nominations four more times in 1985, '86, '88 and '89 – an unprecedented record), followed by an abrupt decline that helped undermine her fame, at least outside the US. Because in the United States her status as a star remains unchanged to this day, honored many times over and inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008.

A Polish Girl in New York

Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in New York (January 10, 1953) to a Polish father and an Irish mother. Her career would largely be tied to her second husband, guitarist Neil Giraldo, but by a strange twist of fate, the surname that would go down in history was that of the man she married first, Dennis T. Benatar. It was a short-lived marriage, ending when she returned to the Big Apple after a stint in Richmond, Virginia, split between working as a bank clerk by day and singing in nightclubs by night.

Your love is like a tidal wave, spinning over my head

("Heartbreaker")

In the mid-70s, Pat still didn't quite know what she wanted to do with her life. She had studied singing (including opera) following in her mother's footsteps, but after graduating from Lindenhurst High School (1971), she drifted for a while, unsure of her path. Still, she kept grinding away in clubs. And in 1977, she finally hit the mark.

The opportunity came via a talent contest for amateur singers organized by the club Catch a Rising Star in New York. Pat went all out, showing up dressed as a zombie, in a Halloween-style costume modeled on a character from the B-movie "Cat-Women Of The Moon". Joke or provocation, whatever it was, it worked, incredibly. Perhaps thanks to a commanding voice that couldn't go unnoticed for long.

With the help of a jingle for Pepsi Cola and a few performances at Tramps in New York, the record industry took notice of her: Terry Ellis, head of Chrysalis, signed her without a second thought. Completing the turning point that would shape her career was also her new marriage to the aforementioned Neil Giraldo, with whom Pat would build a rock-solid artistic and romantic bond (and with whom she would have two daughters, Haley and Hana).

Pat and her band played clean, no-frills hard rock. Tough and forceful, but not overly so. Perfect for breaking into the charts in 1979 America.

The muscular drum attack that opens "Heartbreaker" is the ideal introduction to this bionic brand of rock, where her crystalline voice shines, as "clean" in the high register as it is rough and sensual in the lower one. A vocal delivery so bold it's showcased a cappella or backed only by booming drums, though it ultimately finds its most faithful ally in Giraldo's guitar forays. The lyrics, meanwhile, are the first of many romantic storms to come: "Your love is like a tidal wave, spinning over my head". Just to set things straight from the start.

A blockbuster single, in short, that shot straight to No. 23 on the US charts, carrying along the debut album, In The Heat Of The Night, and thus succeeding where the two previous singles had failed: the country-rock cover of "I Need A Lover" (John Cougar Mellencamp) and the bittersweet ballad "If You Think You Know How To Love Me".

With a punk-schooled ferocity filtered through the knowing poses of a Debbie Harry (see also the extremely sensual cover art), Pat Benatar floors the audience, alternating lashes and caresses like a seasoned mistress. "We Live For Love" is sensual ecstasy in velvet gloves: a taut ballad of whispers and malicious feedback, expertly steered by Benatar's vocals, which show off the full breadth of her range, including an "operatic" quality unknown to the vast majority of rock singers. It would turn out to be the album's other hit, also cracking the top 30. Just as sinuous is "In The Heat Of The Night", which unfolds with a "nocturnal" feel even in its sound, muffled and murky, driven by a pulsing bassline and a fine central guitar solo. These are perhaps the tracks closest to the style of Blondie, a reference point that would remain crucial throughout Pat's career; she also tries her hand at songwriting on the midtempo "My Clone Sleeps Alone" (an ode against the homogenization of the female-rocker mold) and on the unbridled rock'n'roll of "So Sincere".

Rounding out the picture are two more covers — one more forgettable, Nick Gilder's "Rated X", the other more incisive, "Don't Let It Show" by the Alan Parsons Project — while "No You Don't" (originally written for Sweet) bares the feminist rocker's claws in what might be the heaviest track of the bunch.

Thanks also to the skilled hand of Mike Chapman — already known for his work with Blondie and The Knack — who shared production duties with Peter Coleman, the mix that makes up In The Heat Of The Night proves explosive: it would climb to No. 12 and earn the first of a string of platinum records, establishing Benatar as a new star in the rock firmament.

Don't want to be no martyr, I know I'm no saint...

Open your eyes, maybe you’ll see the light

("Treat Me Right")

The war of the sexes

There's no time to waste, and by the summer of 1980 the new LP, Crimes Of Passion, is already in the can. If the debut had hinted at it, here the "war of the sexes" — which would go on to become a classic trait of Pat's output — explodes in all its fury. Its ideal manifesto is the opening track "Treat Me Right", written by Benatar herself: an ultimatum delivered at full volume, under a layer of incandescent feedback. “One of these days you’re gonna reach out and find/ The one that you count on has left you behind/ Don’t want to be no martyr, I know I’m no saint”, is the threat, against which the only alternative is to open one's eyes ("Open your eyes, maybe you'll see the light"), putting an end to the hesitations typical of male cowardice (“You want me to leave, you want me to stay/ You ask me to come back, you turn and walk away/ You wanna be lover, and you wanna be friend”). Similarly sharp claims return on "You Better Run", where amid increasingly heavy guitar solos, Benatar unleashes another invective against her lover, mixing resentment and passion: "I can't stand your alibis, you tell me lies, drive me wild, yeah". A sort of perverse, fatal attraction, for which the only remedy is to send the partner running: "You better run, you better hide, you better leave from my side".

A warrior Pat thus bursts onto the scene, though she doesn't give up showing her more sensual (and, admittedly, slightly crude) side on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot": a dirty, lascivious piece of rock, irresistible in its arsenal of blazing guitars, even if rather conventional in itself — it will nonetheless become her first single to crack the Top Ten, selling over 4 million copies in the US alone.

The album's peak, though, is another fiery performance, inspired in Pat by a series of New York Times articles about child sexual abuse in the US. "Hell Is For Children" is one of the great showcases of her vocal power, a tour de force skillfully steered between reflective moments and explosions, well supported by searing guitar solos and a relentless rhythm section. An ensemble that also shows off its tightness on the reggae-rock of "Never Wanna Leave You".

The rest of the album offers some forgettable moments ("Prisoner Of Love", "I'm Gonna Follow You", "Out-A-Touch" are competent exercises and nothing more) but also a good (and underrated) rock cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Eights", which once again shows off a superior vocal talent.

Crimes Of Passion isn't a step forward from the debut; if anything, it shows greater confidence in her use of her voice and a tighter rapport with the band. But America is thrilled by it and falls head over heels for Pat, seeing in her something like a female Springsteen. In January 1981 the album climbs to No. 2 on the US chart (behind John Lennon's "Double Fantasy"), where it will stay for 93 weeks, and a month later the New York-born singer wins her first Grammy Award, in the category of Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

Rolling Stone immortalizes her on its cover with a famous Annie Leibovitz photo, portraying her in one of her typical period looks (tight leather trousers and a striped top), heavily made up and clinging to her guitarist, by now also her trusted songwriting partner. And the fledgling MTV pays her no small tribute too: "You Better Run" will be the second video ever aired in the channel's history, right after the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" (August 1981).

What's still left to conquer, though, is the very top of the charts. That task is accomplished by the third album, Precious Time (1981), which will also remain the only record in her discography to taste the thrill of the No. 1 spot, as well as the first to take off on the other side of the Atlantic too (No. 30 on the UK Chart).

That feat goes by the name of "Promises In The Dark", an insinuating rock ride that starts out very quiet, with the intro whispered just above a hush, before catching fire in the chorus, with roaring guitars and tempestuous drumming driving the climax. Live, it will become a signature showstopper, literally setting the crowd ablaze. The biggest hit, though, is "Fire And Ice", built on another sturdy rock framework, with a pulsing bass front and center supporting the stunning vocal performance and the melodic lift of the refrain: it will earn her a second Grammy Award, again in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category, in 1981.

Besides the two hits, Benatar also writes the ambitious "Evil Genius", a track quite far from her usual style, where horn inserts and guitars occasionally stitch together a sort of instrumental "mini-suite" — perhaps not entirely successful, but certainly intriguing.

Derivative, even compared to Siouxsie And The Banshees' version, but all in all decent is the cover of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter", while the soft-rock of the title track stays afloat on a sticky chorus and another brilliant vocal performance (with a few echoes of Chrissie Hynde). Elsewhere, though, things slip openly into a limp AOR hard-rock ("Just Like Me", "Hard To Believe", "Take It Anything You Want It").

These tracks aren't helped by a production that's a touch too flat and polished, which compresses the instrumental fury and dulls the pathos.

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

(“Shadows Of The Night”)

Shadows of the Night

But while certain production quirks certainly reflected the limits of some early-Eighties records, Pat's approach had remained that of a Seventies rock tigress. By 1982, with new wave fever in full swing, the time had come to change. In the interviews leading up to the new album, the New York singer made clear she had no desire to be boxed into hard-rocker stereotypes, adding that she now preferred melodic, wave-inflected keyboards to metallic hard-rock guitars. The shift in direction is sealed visually by a typically wave-style cover, showing her with a tousled Eighties hairdo and a wild-eyed stare against a white background. Even the album's title, Get Nervous, draws on a neurotic imagery already plundered by swarms of wavers.

What was needed, though, was a track that would give the whole operation meaning, since it risked coming across as insincere, if not outright contrived. "Shadows Of The Night" fulfills that task completely and then some, revealing itself as (perhaps) the masterpiece of an entire career. It's a striking opener that fires the solo-vocal chorus straight at you, then that mighty wall of guitars and the drumming that kicks the tempo up a notch, then the bridge, delivered with epic flair, sharpening the pathos to breaking point, with those fateful keyboards holding everything together, right up to the triumphant return of the chorus, now carried by the full band and followed by Giraldo's inevitable guitar solo. The emphasis on sound isn't far removed from certain contemporary productions by Jim Steinman, the man who would make the fortune of Benatar's British alter ego, Bonnie Tyler. It's the perfect song, the one that ideally blends Pat's genuinely rock spirit with her more melodic Eighties evolution. It will fly to No. 13 on the US charts and earn her a new Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance of 1982.

This strange hard-wave hybrid also works, in part, on "Anxiety" - almost a hysterical pantomime in the vein of Lene Lovich over layers of shimmering keyboards, with more restrained guitars backing a vocal performance that is, as usual, masterful - on the catchy "Looking For A Stranger" (with an incisive chorus and some nice keyboard textures amid the somewhat heavy-handed guitar blasts) and on the even more melodic "Fight It Out", where the softer moments and hushed backing vocals mark a further step towards the soft pop-rock that would characterize her later records (though the guitar solo doesn't keep you waiting here either). It's an evolution that doesn't spare even the new jealous outburst of "Tell It To Her", where yet another dishonest partner is urged to go seek pity from his unsuspecting lover ("She believes you, just like I did at the start/ When you wrapped up my heart, and played with my emotions") who doesn't know his darker side ("She don't know the darker side of you").

The rock'n'roll claws of "The Victim" and "Silent Partner" confirm, however, that the grit of her early days hasn't faded. What tracks of this kind lack, much like, on the more melodic side, songs such as "Little Too Late" and "I'll Do It", is songwriting that goes beyond mere craft, that manages to deliver that spark or change of gear.

Either way, the melodic shift pays off: Get Nervous reaches No. 4 on the US charts and racks up her fourth consecutive platinum record.

We are young, heartache to heartache we stand

No promises, no demands

Love is a battlefield

("Love Is A Battlefield)

The Video Star

Pat is now a celebrity, as well as a video star, thanks to the new clip for "Shadows Of The Night", which casts her in the (unlikely) roles of a factory worker on an assembly line and a fighter pilot alongside the then-barely-known actors Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton, in a spy story set during World War II.

Capping off this magic moment, Pat Benatar releases her first live album, Live From Earth (1983), which captures two years of an extremely successful tour that confirmed her as a vibrant interpreter and a performer brimming with sensuality, helped along by her provocative, aggressive stage outfits. In their live incarnation, her hits gain further rhythm and vigor, sharpening their adrenaline-fueled charge. Credit is also due to the by-now razor-sharp band, which displays considerable firepower on stage.

But what really makes the album shine is also a previously unreleased track, recorded in the studio and quite far removed from the raw feel of the live set. It's called "Love Is A Battlefield" and bears the signature of a skilled hit-crafter like Holly Knight, alongside Mike Chapman. The theme is the usual one, love as a battlefield, where men and women clash on a daily basis, but the mood is the romantically epic one of the decade: “We are young, heartache to heartache we stand/ No promises, no demands/ Love Is A Battlefield”. And musically, the song is a bomb. Whether it's the lushly enveloping production, pure Eighties style, or the killer refrain, or yet another vocal feat, framed within a soft dance-pop structure, "Love Is A Battlefield" wins everyone over: longtime fans, devotees of Eighties synth sounds, and casual pop-rock listeners alike. That aching little melody, whispered, belted out at the top of her lungs, or even whistled in the finale, becomes almost an anthem of the decade. Credit is also due to a successful video, in which Pat, a stunning thirty-year-old, regresses to a teenage runaway who ends up in a seedy club for men, where she leads a female rebellion complete with a group dance number à la Michael Jackson.

"Love Is A Battlefield" will turn out to be Pat Benatar's biggest hit, topping Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and the Australian chart, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 17 in the UK as well. A fourth consecutive Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1983 is, inevitably, the result.

The other unreleased track on Live From Earth, "Lipstick Lies" - written by Giraldo with drummer Myron Grombacher - is another well-crafted Blondie-style pop-rock number, complete with the inevitable imaginative music video.

In the glam era par excellence, as Madonna starts jostling for position armed with crucifixes and lingerie, and a horde of sexy pop stars prepare to exploit MTV with their looks and bodies even before their music, Pat Benatar proves she can compete on equal terms in this arena too. With, on her side, vocal qualities and performer's grit unknown to most of her rivals.

The undeniable softening of her sound, however, risks turning into a loss of identity on the following album, Tropico (1984). The exotic-pop dirge of the single “We Belong” drags itself sinuously through plasticky keyboards and hazy backing vocals, dispersing much of the wild energy of her early work (though it would become yet another hit, reaching no. 5 in the US and, inevitably, winning a Grammy). The other single, “Ooh Ooh Song” (the only one she also co-wrote), is instead steeped in breezy, sixties swing-blues atmospheres, pairing a spirited gait and joyful backing vocals with rather sterile keyboards.

Even the songs that sit halfway between rock muscle and pop gloss (“Diamond Field”, “Temporary Heroes”, “Outlaw Blues”, “A Crazy World Like This”) show the strain, evidence of a dangerous creative drift.

In this landscape of mediocrity, one happy exception stands out: the gorgeous ballad “Painted Desert”, opened by the insistent acoustic arpeggios of its instrumental prologue and masterfully guided by Pat's vocals through its sinuous melodic curves. It's a top-class number, proof that the New York rocker's career could easily have developed just as well on the singer-songwriter side, had she managed to find the right pens to write for her.

Tropico thus marks a step backward from the pop-rock standards reached at the start of the decade, struggling even on the charts, where it doesn't climb past a still respectable no. 14.

Love is more than a one way reflection

Stop using sex as a weapon

(“Sex As A Weapon”)

Armistice (and comeback)

When the new album, Seven The Hard Way, comes out in the autumn of 1985, the surprise extends to the lyrics as well. After a lifetime spent waging the battle of the sexes through rock, Pat Benatar declares a unilateral truce: “Stop using sex as a weapon” is in fact the slogan-chorus of a song that nonetheless also marks the start of her comeback. Because the single “Sex As A Weapon” (no. 10 on the US charts), without overdoing it, recaptures the hard-rock energy of her golden years, giving Pat the setup for another one of her fired-up performances. If anything, what leaves something to be desired is the production, still too glossy, and the arrangements, which fall into the usual pitfalls of American mainstream rock. Overall, though, the track works, and paired with the other call to arms, “Invincible” (the theme from the film “The Legend of Billie Jean” with Helen Slater), it finally brings Pat back into the rock arena where she belongs, in the guise of an invincible, furious heroine (“We've got the right to be angry”), capable of unleashing superb new vocal runs over swarms of feedback.

Having shed the bland softness of its predecessor, Seven The Hard Way (her seventh album in seven years) polishes up a first-rate vocalist, one capable of navigating with ease the “operatic” pitfalls of “Le Bel Age” (a swollen rock ballad packed with percussion and overdubbed vocals), of sinking into the smoky jazzy atmospheres of “Walking In The Underground” and the dreamy languor of “Run Between The Raindrops”, but also of going back to clawing like a rock tigress on “Big Life” and “Red Vision”, two dark electric rides that are undeniably powerful, if weighed down by drum loops and overwhelming overproduction.

The real feat, though, is a new cover of a Motown classic by the Four Tops: “7 Rooms Of Gloom”, entrusted to Pat's anguished delivery – somewhere between spoken word and daring vocal runs – and Giraldo's roaring guitars, becomes a spectacular electric torch song.

To the now well-established axis of Giraldo and Grombacher is added the steady contribution of songwriters who had already worked with the band over the years, such as Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg, with clear benefits on the songwriting front (in the end, the only filler is the closing ballad “The Art Of Letting Go”). And this is also the first album on which Benatar, having recently become a mother, doesn't put her name to a single song.

Despite a few sporadic slips into kitsch, then, Seven The Hard Way gives us back the Pat we've always known, the most sincere and thrilling version of her, even if on the charts it won't climb past no. 26.

Having eased off the grueling pace of the previous seven years, Benatar allows herself a three-year break devoted to family. But her rapport with the charts remains unchanged, as confirmed by the new single “All Fired Up” (written by Kerryn Tolhurst, former Dingoes member), which breaks into the top 20 on both the US and UK charts and becomes a smash hit in Australia too. And the New York vocalist's fire remains just as intact, fueled by a new burst of adrenaline-charged hard rock, even if it falls short of her very best work.

The follow-up album Wide Awake In Dreamland (1988) settles overall into a conventional, predictable electro-rock-pop groove (the other single "One Love", "Don't Wake Away", "Lift Em On Up", the title track), lacking even the melodic hooks of the past to make it shine again (with the possible exception of the evocative ballad "Too Long A Soldier").

Ideas are in short supply, in short, as confirmed by the dull wordiness of "Let's Stay Together", which concentrates the worst of a sound that was never cutting-edge to begin with, but which here appears truly, irredeemably dated. And even on the "social commentary" front, good intentions clash with bland, toothless writing (the urban jungle of "Cool Zero", the renewed child abuse of "Suffer The Little Children", a ballad inspired by the real-life case of the kidnapping of young Melissa).

The one saving grace is a voice that has never lost its shine, but the album's authors - Benatar herself included - certainly don't give it the best setting to sparkle in. It's the start of a rapid decline for the woman who had been the rockeuse par excellence of the decade. A drop in popularity that will continue uninterrupted to this day, leading to that obscurity and those distortions mentioned at the outset.

Lady sings the blues

Having secured her pension with the multi-million sales of the Eighties, ideally wrapped up with the compilation Best Shots (1989), Pat Benatar feels she can carve out new space for herself, breaking free from the pressing obligations of showbiz. She thus decides to pursue a project she had evidently long dreamed of, against the wishes of her record company (unsurprisingly, it will receive virtually no promotion from Chrysalis). A foray into jump-blues and old-time swing. With a drastic shift above all in production and arrangements: gone are the bombastic keyboards of her recent albums, replaced by a leaner, more direct approach, aided by Roomful Of Blues, a big band with a horn section and a drummer.

Thus comes True Love (1991), on which the Giraldo-Grombacher duo still take part, both instrumentally and in the writing (the three new tracks). For the most part, however, it's a covers album, paying deferential tribute to classics by legendary blues figures such as B.B. King ("Playin' The Cost To Be The Boss", "I've Got Papers On You"), Albert King ("I Get Evil"), T-Bone Walker ("Evening"), Wynonie Harris ("Bloodshot Eyes").

Although not exactly her natural territory (closer, if anything, to country tones), the blues revitalizes Pat, giving her fresh stimulus and showcasing once again her extraordinary vocal power. A complete metamorphosis, transforming the tedious late-Eighties pop-singer into the unleashed frontwoman of a 1940s Chicago bar band.

Even the new tracks don't feel out of place, offering the springboard for striking new vocal performances: the velvety title track (credited to Benatar-Giraldo) with its plucked double bass and bluesy guitar, the "jump 'n' jive" energy of "I Feel Lucky", with horns and accordion to the fore, the exuberant boogie-woogie of "The Good Life", punctuated by piano and sax. The US CD edition would add as a bonus track the Christmas standard "Please Come Home For Christmas", dedicated to American soldiers serving in the Gulf War.

The bold gamble of True Love confirms the suspicion that Pat Benatar is often worth more than her songs. And sales - No. 37 on Billboard and gold certification - would prove decidedly surprising, given the extremely limited promotion.

The return to form with Gravity's Rainbow (1993), however, is another misstep. And the title of the opening piano interlude, "Pictures Of A Gone World", sounds almost mocking in describing an already well-established reality: in the rock arena, Pat Benatar no longer has anything to say, and her world is now sadly outdated. Cast as a mature, démodé rockeuse, the former panther of "Heartbreaker" can at best wallow in bitter reflections on surrender (the melodic hard rock of the single "Everybody Lay Down"), on alienation (the tense "Disconnected") and on marginalization (the new, saccharine social commentary of the ballad "Somebody's Baby", which muses on how a homeless person was once loved).

Even on the intimate-ballad front ("Every Time I Fall Back", "You And I") the Benatar-Giraldo duo fail to restore any bite to their music, which feels equally insubstantial on the numbers reminiscent of their blues phase, such as the acoustic "Rise (Part 2)" and the swing of "Crazy".

Complicating the album's promotion further was Pat's new pregnancy. Whatever the reason, sales flop, and Chrysalis takes the opportunity to drop her after 14 years of honorable service.

Outside Showbiz

The following two albums, released on small labels like Cmc and Bel Chiasso, fail to revive her popularity, but at least allow Pat to run her artistic career with greater independence.

Innamorata (1997) opens the door to new folk, Latin and soul inflections over her usual rock framework. Unusual touches of violin (courtesy of Alison Cronell) and acoustic guitar thus find room, broadening the horizon of her songs somewhat. The result includes some rather engaging episodes, like the folk-tinged single "Only You" (which could easily have come from one of the many acclaimed albums by female singer-songwriters of the '90s), the bluesy digression of "Dirty Little Secrets", or the intense ballads "Papa's Roses" and "I Don't Want To Be Your Friend (I Want To Be Your Lover)", which hint at some signs of melodic recovery.

But even when she steps back into the rock arena, Pat proves she can still hold her own ("At This Time"), buoyed by a hefty soul groove on the vibrant "River Of Love" and in full vocal grace during the tour de force of "Strawberry Wine (Life Is Sweet)".

Elsewhere, old flaws resurface (the wordiness of the title track, the affected mannerism of "Purgatory" and "In This Time"), but on the whole Innamorata presents us with a dignified, middle-aged chanteuse version of Benatar, one capable of even bidding the audience farewell with an unusual acoustic instrumental ("Gina'Song").

After a six-year hiatus, filled only by the release of the triple anthology Synchronistic Wanderings (1999) and a live album credited to the Benatar-Giraldo duo, the return to the studio for Go (2003) brings the old problems back to the surface, almost "foretold" by a terrible, kitschy cover.

In the age of Alanis Morissette, Pat tries to keep pace, even attempting an unlikely emulation of that model - she who had coined one of her own (and a far more powerful one) a decade and a half earlier. And the result falls apart at every seam: the songs come across as sterile and cold, utterly devoid of that feeling which, however rough-edged at times, had always warmed her songs. In chloroformed pop-rock ballads like "Brave", "I Won't", "Have It All" and the title track, there isn't a single hook to be found that might catch the listener's ear. Even Benatar's own voice, so "Morissette-ified", practically fades into the background, even where it tries to launch into some bolder vocal flourish ("Sorry").

On top of the lack of ideas come the usual flaws of overproduction, further accentuated here, drowning every minimal spark of inspiration in a swamp of double-tracked guitars, backing vocals and dull percussion. Here and there something survives: the folk-tinged melodrama of "Out Of The Ruins", with Giraldo on the accordion, the guitar embroidery of "Sorry", the slide solo on "In My Dreams". But it's decidedly too little to justify an album that comes dangerously close to plagiarism on the long ballad "Brokenhearted", which bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Jimmy Ruffin's hit "What Becomes Of The Broken-Hearted".

Meanwhile, Pat would get the chance to try her hand at film (the role of Jeanette Florescu in Marcus Reichert's film "Union City") and television (appearing alongside Giraldo in an episode of the TV series "Charmed", titled "Lucky Charmed"), as well as publishing her first autobiography, "Between An Heart And A Rock Place", later followed by "Une rockeuse engagée" (co-written with Patsi Bale Cox).

Then, in the summer of 2009, came the seal on her ideal trait d'union with Debbie Harry, with a nostalgic tour alongside Blondie.

In an era of plasticized rockeuses like Morissette herself, Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne and the rest of the singing crowd, in which rock'n'roll frauds like Courtney Love (or Avril Lavigne) proliferate, Pat Benatar is by now a tiger in a cage. Too far along in years to recapture the fury of her early days (and rightly leave all of them eating her dust), yet at the same time unable to find a second youth in more mature and reflective songwriting. She will thus end up forgotten and - as noted - unfairly labeled an icon of a "trashy rock" she only occasionally embodied, over the course of a long career instead studded with many genuinely thrilling and incisive moments, moments that would deserve one of those reassessments so dear to the revisionist criticism in vogue these days. Those who have always appreciated her since her debut, however, can console themselves by reeling off those 30 million copies sold and taking a look at some old videos on YouTube. Only to conclude that today, there aren't many rock women cut from that same cloth left.

But time, as they say, can sometimes be a gentleman. And so, on an autumn evening in November 2022, Pat Benatar, together with her inseparable Neil Giraldo, enjoyed her well-deserved induction into the Rock'n'roll Hall Of Fame, formally confirming the status she had always deserved.

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