Song of the Day #1,118: ‘Love is a Battlefield’ – Cee-Lo Green & Vicci Martinez

One of the neat aspects of The Voice was seeing the coaches and contestants perform together. During the first few weeks of the series they performed as teams but once they were down to the final four, we were treated to duets by each coach and his or her one remaining singer.

Dia Frampton and Blake Shelton delivered a charming but mostly forgettable rendition of Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down.’ Adam Levine and Javier Colon traded falsettos while singing Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror,’ a song they both love but I hate. And Christina Aguilera and Beverly McLellan performed a lovely acoustic version of Aguilera’s moving ‘Beautiful’ with Linda Perry, the song’s writer, accompanying on guitar.

Continue reading

Song of the Day #292: ‘Love is a Battlefied’ – Pat Benatar

benatarI don’t have many associations with this song, apart from some vague memories of the rather odd video. Benatar plays a troubled teen who is kicked out of the house and winds up dancing with strangers in a bar. Then one day a fellow employee is roughed up by the sleazy manager and she comes to the girl’s defense by leading the rest of the employees in a line dance not unlike the one the zombies do in ‘Thriller.’

This song came up recently when I was talking about the near-blanket rule I have about songs with spoken-word parts. As in, I hate almost all of them. I’m thinking of the sort of thing you hear in Elvis Presley songs, where after the second chorus the singer feels the need to chit-chat: “You know, baby, every time I see your face I want to die…” You know the drill. It’s like somebody interrupted the song to read a Hallmark card.

Continue reading