Pat Benatar is another rock legend who has never landed a #1 hit on the Hot 100, though she has come close a couple of times.
Like so many artists I’ve featured over the past three weeks, Benatar has had a lot of success selling albums. She released three Platinum and two multi-Platinum albums during a 5-year span in the late 70s and early 80s. But those albums produced just two top ten hits.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has had a spotty reputation when it comes to inducting women. Only 25 solo women have been inducted into the Hall as performers since its 1986 inception. The Hall has been making up for that oversight in recent years, with 10 of those coming in the last five years.
Last year saw the induction of Pat Benatar, the artist responsible for such hits as ‘Love is a Battlefield,’ ‘Hit Me with Your Best Shot,’ and ‘We Belong.’ Interestingly, Benatar was added to the Hall alongside her longtime husband and guitarist, Neil Giraldo, so she may not qualify as a “solo” inductee even though all of her albums were released under her name alone.
I 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.
Meet Me In Montauk 