"Dude, she rocks."
—John Dorian, Scrubs
Pat Benatar (born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski, January 10, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York City) is a rock singer. She is one of the top-selling female vocalists of all time, with sales of over 13 million copies in the US alone. Her best-known songs include "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."
She won four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Performance, from 1980 to 1983. She has also won three American Music Awards and has been inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. In 2022, Benatar and her husband and primary musical partner Neal Giraldo were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
She is unusual among pop stars in that she was operatically trained before switching to hard rock — a skill that she exhibits with electrifying prowess for the chorus of one of her biggest hits, "We Live For Love".
Discography
- In the Heat of the Night (1979)
- Crimes of Passion (1980)
- Precious Time (1981)
- Get Nervous (1982)
- Live From Earth (Live Album, 1983)
- Tropico (1984)
- Seven the Hard Way (1985)
- Wide Awake in Dreamland (1988)
- True Love (1991)
- Gravity's Rainbow (1993)
- Innamorata (1997)
- Go (2003)
"Hit me with your best trope":
- Abusive Parents: "Hell Is For Children." Also "Suffer the Little Children." — supporting abused children is a cause very near to Pat's heart.
- Big Rock Ending: "Heartbreaker"
- The Cameo: "Anxiety (Get Nervous)" has Bill Paxton reading a horror magazine.
- Chronological Album Title: Seven the Hard Way. "The Hard Way" refers to the fact that she released a new album each year from 1979 to 1985 (though one of them was a Live Album with two new studio tracks). She broke that streak with the next album, which was released in 1988.
- According to Benatar's autobiography, it also refers to the fact that her record company pressured her into making it just a few months after giving birth to her first child.
- Concept Video: "Love Is a Battlefield" (shot as a movie-esque narrative, with Pat playing The Runaway) and "Shadows Of The Night".
- Cover Version: John Mellencamp's "I Need A Lover" on In the Heat of the Night, and Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" on Crimes of Passion.
- Cultural Rebel: Another Carole King, Barbra Streisand, or Karen Carpenter? Nope! This girl performs hard rock!
- Cut Himself Shaving: "Hell Is For Children" has the line "Tell grandma you fell off the swing".
- Dancing Is Serious Business: In the music video for "Love Is a Battlefield". Also a classic example of an Angry Dance.
- Depraved Dentist: The entire theme of the video to "Anxiety (Get Nervous)".
- Dramatic Choir Number: "We Belong" has a children's choir join in on the third chorus.
- Determinator: "Invincible"
- Food Slap: In the video for "Love Is A Battlefield", after Pat's character sees a fellow dancer at a nightclub she worked at get mishandled by their boss, she retaliates by throwing a drink into her boss' face before she and all the other workers leave the nightclub.
- Funny Background Event: At live concerts, if her partner Neil Geraldo has a guitar solo during any song, Pat will usually kill time by going to get a drink of water... or do some weird dance.
- Irony: The ending of "Anxiety (Get Nervous)" has Pat becoming an evil nurse herself.
- Kids Rock: "We Belong" has a children's chorus at the end.
- Little People Are Surreal: One of the evil dentist's assistants in the nightmarish "Anxiety (Get Nervous)" is a little person.
- Lyrical Cold Open: "Shadows Of The Night".
- Lyrics/Video Mismatch: "Shadows Of The Night": she's a WWII flying ace.note
- New Sound Album: Tropico saw Pat and Neil experiment with synthesizers and more diverse music, while True Love is a blues album.
- No Ending: The ending of "Love is a Battlefield" is ambiguous. She's returning home (?) after her father kicked her out, with an uncertain future.
- Paranoia Fuel: The entire theme of "Anxiety (Get Nervous)".
- The Runaway: She plays one in the "Love Is a Battlefield" video.
- Self-Deprecation: The video for "Sex As A Weapon" features numerous images mocking how sex is used to sell products, capped by an early publicity still of Benatar in a leotard, back when her record company was using sexy images to promote her.
- Sunk Cost Fallacy: The protagonist of "We Belong" is unwilling to end her relationship because of the time she's invested in it.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Fought a lot of them as a hotshot fighter pilot in the video to "Shadows Of The Night".
- Video Full of Film Clips: The "Invincible" video contains clips from The Legend of Billie Jean.
