Musical Reflections: Re-Discovering Pat Benatar

I had just managed to leave high school behind me when Pat Benatar’s first album was released in 1979. I can’t say I remember it, although I was listening to the radio in those days, and almost certainly heard the singles from it. Her second album, Crimes of Passion, was a different story. Released in the summer of 1980, it was loaded with radio-friendly songs, and I purchased a copy of the LP. It was mostly straight-ahead rock, played cleanly (i.e. more like pop than punk), though with more skill than creativity, and more attitude than musicality. One t...