Customer Reviews

Greatest Hits by Pat Benatar

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's about time! Previous Benatar remasters have been fair to poor, sounding like they were pulled from any random source rather than the original master tapes. The 1999 'Synchronistic Wanderings' anthology, although an excellent collection of hits and rarities, was simply lacking with the remastering. "Love Is A Battlefield", for example, sounded rather flat for a so-called remaster. The same could be said for "We Belong" and most of the other tracks. Then there was the 2002 'Classic Masters' release. Finally I thought Capitol got it right since I had bought other 'Classic Masters' releases from other acts and was greatly impressed. Again, Capitol failed to impress with it's rather flat mastering treatment.

'Greatest Hits' has been digitally remastered by Evren Goknar @ Capitol Mastering, Hollywood. Oddly enough, Evren also remastered 1999's 'Synchronstic Wanderings' anthology. However, Evren has done a much better job on this 2005 release! The differences on some tracks are striking. The audio is rich, full, clear, and sharp -- a depth unheard of in any previous releases.

FINALLY, Capitol got it right with this release! While many Benatar fans may be reluctant to pick up yet another "hits" release from the rocker the audio quality alone should hopefully be enough to entice a few of the audiophiles.

I popped this disc into my player hoping I wouldn't be let down. From hearing the beginning heavy drum beats of "Heartbreaker" I knew I was in for a real treat! The remastering here is superb! Finally we get "Love Is A Battlefield" and "We Belong" with depth and range! "Shadows Of The Night" has never sounded so heavy! It's nice to have here in it's better single version. "Invincible" actually has a punchy intro. It has always sounded compressed and flat previously. Ah, "Le Bel Age" is breathtaking with it's bass line and drums! Who knew this little '86 hit had so much kick?! All tracks sound nearly flawless!

My only complaint is that while this collection covers most of Pat's biggest hits it's missing selections from the 1990s, notably gems such as "True Love" and "Somebody's Baby." Perhaps it would have been better titled as 'Greatest Hits 1979 - 1989' with another hits collection to follow a few months later, capturing those remaining hits and other strong album cuts.

The liner notes include comments from other female artists, such as Lisa Marie Presley, Tori Amos, and Martina McBride.

Additionally, Capitol have decided to use single versions of select tracks, perhaps for time, since the release is 20 tracks and clocking in 10 seconds short of 80 minutes. While some people may cringe at edited versions, most of them work here. However, I must say I've never been that fond of the single version of "Love Is A Battlefield" since it sounds chopped with the fade-out. Perhaps the full-length version will surface on a future remastered release. The tracklisting:

01 Heartbreaker (Single Mix)
02 We Live For Love (Single Edit)
03 Hit Me With Your Best Shot
04 Hell Is For Children
05 Treat Me Right
06 You Better Run
07 Fire And Ice
08 Promises In The Dark
09 Precious Time
10 Shadows Of The Night (Single Edit)
11 Little Too Late (Single Edit)
12 Looking For A Stranger
13 Love Is A Battlefield (Single Edit)
14 We Belong
15 Ooh Ooh Song (Single Edit)
16 Invincible (Theme From 'The Legend Of Billie Jean')
17 Sex As A Weapon
18 Le Bel Age (Single Edit)
19 All Fired Up (Single Edit)
20 One Love (Song Of The Lion) (Single Edit)

Now Capitol, how about giving Pat's entire catalogue a remastering treatment? 5.1 would be nice!

To say Pat Benatar's first state-side greatest hits CD was a disappointment would be an overwhelming understatement.

Best Shots was issued on Halloween of 1989, ushered in by a week-long prime time co-hosting stint on MTV, and the release of "One Love" as a single (borrowed from her previous studio offering, 1988s Wide Awake In Dreamland), but anyone scanning the tracklisting was left scratching their head as to why half of her hits were missing.

In what seemed like an effort to showcase the more "schlock-rock"-ish selections from her back catalag (a genre then enjoying it's last bursts of chart domination), Chrysalis Records and possibly Benatar herself ignored some of her strongest singles and sucked the fun right out of that decade-spanning retrospective. Still, being the only official, single disc Benatar collection, it went on to be a platinum seller.

Cut ahead nearly 16 years. The worldwide market has been flooded with no fewer than 30 generic "EMI Special Markets" compilations, a result of Chrysalis Records having folded in the early 90s, leaving their entire back catalog vulernable to being, er, whored-out. All such releases notoriously feature hideous, cheap inserts, random track selection and poor sound quality recycled from old analog transfers. They've certainly cooled many peoples desire for "yet another" greatest hits disc (most of all, probably her fans), but Capitol Records has now finally issued the DEFINITIVE Pat Benatar compilation.

You need this CD.

Pat Benatar: Greatest Hits is her first official single disc collection since Best Shots. It features all 12 songs included on that release (the final 3 were CD-only bonus cuts drawn from the One Love single, tacked on to entice buyers to opt for the growing compact disc market), plus 8 additional hits inexplicably omitted from that release.

All 15 top of her top 40 Billboard singles are here along with other key tracks, and they sound fantastic. This isn't a repackaging of the same old tracks to make a quick dollar. Clocking in a mere 10 second under maximum disc capacity (that's 79:50), all tracks have been digitally remasted and given a punch previously unheard on any past release. Capitol has successfully brought these tracks up to todays standards. This also marks the first ever appearance of the superior "Treat Me Right" single remix on compact disc.

The artwork and layout is superb, featuring an iconic selection of photos presented on metallic silver and black stock, topped off with simple red and white lettering. The booklet contains a well-written bio summing up Pat's importance to the world of music, as well as a selection of lengthy tributes from the likes of Tori Amos, Lisa Marie Presley, plus (finally) an accurate and detailed Billboard chart history.

This is the only Pat Benatar CD a casual listener will ever need, and there's plenty here to keep fans happy until Capitol rolls out the full-length album remasters series.

Bravo.

Finally-a one disc Greatest Hits by Pat Benatar that not only has all her Top 40 hits, but the one I was looking for-"Le Bel Age," which while not Top 40-it peaked at #54-was the song on MTV that finally got my interest. Lighter than most of her earlier hits, it was nevertheless peppered with the guitar-driven music that made her one of the 80's most formidable women. Or should I say Invincible?

Her debut single "Heartbreaker" with its racing guitar line, makes that song almost like a punk "Paranoid." This song features her distinctive vocal styles, nice and rough, and a higher pitched disco voice. #23 for this song? No way! Higher? Way! That was followed by "We Live For Love," which like some of her other songs, sounded like what Blondie would've been like if they'd been hard rock, or Berlin when they had their hard edge in Count Three And Pray. Such ferocity, including some awesome guitar work by Neil Girardo, her producer/guitarist whom she ended up marrying, is also present in "Promises In The Dark," which only peaked at #38.

Then came her first Top Ten hit, and the one she's usually associated with. No, not an anthem for death row inmates on firing squad, but "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" had the right sound, distinctive crunchy hard guitar chords, pop hooks, Pat's gritty voice, and a catchy chorus that took it to #9 and gold sales.

Before Suzanne Vega's "Luka," Benatar did her own sobering story of child abuse in "Hell Is For Children." She is stronger and blunter: "you shouldn't have to pay with your bones and your flesh," "Be daddy's girl and don't tell me Mommy a thing." compared to Vega's lyricism. "You Better Run," a cover of the Rascals song, has fiercer guitar crunching than "Best Shot" in this angry song against a partner who's no good. This barely missed the Top 40, by two positions.

The #18 "Treat Me Right" has a rhythm section reminiscent of Blondie's "Call Me," which had come out a year earlier. This might explain the existence of the Blondie/Pat Benatar Back To Back compilation. "Shadows of the Night", with its initial acapella chorus, and the explosion of guitars and synths, goes into the power synth/rock ballad genre before Bon Jovi, Cher, and others ran with it in the mid to late 80's.

Holly Knight co-wrote one of Benatar's highest charting hits, the #5 "Love Is A Battlefield," which she would later do on her solo album. With its quick tempo on drums and particularly keyboards, it's no wonder it also peaked at #1 on the rock charts for four weeks. The other was the soaring "We Belong," which combined rock ballad dynamics with keyboard fills.

Rockabilly meets synth pop in the infectiously danceable "Ooh Ooh Song," which inexplicably only got the #35. By the time I got around to Pat Benatar, her career was already entering its final stages. Thanks to my friend George, who loaned me his copy of Seven The Hard Way, I got into her. I'd already heard the anthemic "Invincible," the theme to the Helen Slater movie The Legend of Billie Jean. The other single, "Sex as a Weapon," was a slap against the use of men and women models using their bods to sell stuff, hence the chorus goes "stop using sex as a weapon/Love is more than a one way reflection."

However, listening now to "All Fired Up" from Wide Awake In Dreamland, I found that she had lost none of her fire-only her audience, as that song reached #19. The pounding drums and insistent guitar attack, leading to a refrain of self-affirmation, first softly, then culminating in her usual style: "I believe there comes a time, when everything just falls in line/we live and learn from our mistakes/our deepest cuts are healed by fate."

For those frustrated by some songs missing from other compilations, e.g. Best Shots, or others such as All Fired Up or Synchronistic Wanderings that have too much material, Greatest Hits is to me the best shot of compilations.

THE BAND: Pat Benatar (vocals) and Neil Giraldo (guitars, keyboards) on all tracks... and over the years - Scott St.Claire Sheets (guitars), Roger Capps (bass), Donnie Nossov (bass), Frank Linx (bass), Fernando Saunders (bass), Charlie Giordano (keyboards), Kevin Savigar (keyboards), Glen Alexander Hamilton (drums), Myron Grombacher (drums).

THE DISC: (2005) 20 tracks clocking in at approximately 79 minutes. Included with the disc is a 10-page booklet containing black & white photos of Benatar, song titles/credits (no song lyrics), Billboard chart success of each single, a brief statement from several female artists inspired by Benatar (including Joan Jett, Martina McBride, Sarah McLachlan, Martha Davis, Tori Amos, etc), what songs came from which albums and year released. This compilation follows Benatar from 1979-1988. Remastered sound. Label - Capital Records.

ALBUM REPRESENTATION: In The Heat Of The Night (2 songs), Crimes Of Passion (4), Precious Time (3), Get Nervous (3), Live From Earth (1), Tropico (2), Seven The Hard Way (3), Wide Awake In Dreamland (2).

COMMENTS: 4 Grammy's, 6 platinum albums, 4 gold albums, 19 Top 40 hits... if you're a rock fan, you need some Pat Benatar in your collection. Over a dozen studio albums and almost as many hit compilations from Benatar... what hits package do you ultimately reach for? Looking for an in-depth purchase, go with the 3-disc set "Synchronistic Wanderings" (1999) containing 53 songs (all the hits, several live tracks, B-sides, and alternative takes) - truly a grand collection of master female rocker Pat Benatar. However, if you're looking for that one disc, that gives you just the popular hits... this "Greatest Hits" is the one.

THE GOOD: All the staples are here - "Heartbreaker", "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", "Hell Is For Children", "Treat Me Right", "You Better Run", "Fire And Ice", "Shadows Of The Night", "Precious Time", "Love Is A Battlefield", "We Belong", "Invincible", "All Fired Up", etc. The songs are presented in chronological order - always a bonus in my opinion - hearing the artist mature and change direction(s) over the years. The digital remastering is superb - crisp highs and deep bass tones. There are so many issues these days with `remastering'... where it seems whoever is behind the control board just pushes all the levels up to 11 and doesn't take anything else into consideration. On Benatar's "Greatest Hits" though, the songs sound perfect. The disc itself is packed full of music - just over 79 minutes worth. The liner notes are extensive - giving you pictures, inspirational notes from other female musicians, and specifics on the individual songs.

THE NOT SO GOOD: Two (extremely) minor things... otherwise this disc is as close to perfection as it gets. In general, a vast majority of the compilations miss the boat. For the single disc though, the song selection is dead on accurate - there's not one song that isn't deserving to be here. 1st - personally, for many years I've been tired of the song "We Live For Love". I feel this song is dated and overplayed (at the time). With that being said though, "We Live For Love" deserves to be here - it was Benatar's 2nd Top 40 hit (behind only "Heartbreaker"). 2nd - I could nit-pick some more and say this disc is not all inclusive. You'll find nothing from "True Love" (1991), "Gravity's Rainbow", "Innamorata" (1997) or "Go" (2003). However, there's no room for another song on this disc. Most of the single disc mixes concentrate on Benatar in her prime (as does this one)... here's hoping an updated 2-disc version is released with some of her more recent material, cover tunes ("I Need A Lover" for one), live performances, etc. all together.

OVERALL: Beginners and long time fans - start your collection here. If you're looking for one disc of Pat Benatar in her prime - her best hits in all their remastered glory - this is it (5 stars).

I picked this up because I've always loved Pat Benetar's voice and never managed to have any of her 'stuff'. When I think 'Greatest Hits' I think of songs that were all over the radio or MTV (when they still played videos).
There are actually quite a few songs on this album that I was previously unfamiliar with -- and they're all good.

She has always had such an amazing range that I'm not surprised to hear it on all of these tracks -- but I was surprised by the range of scenes covered. Romance, Love, Abuse, Abandonment -- it's all here and I love every minute of it...

Long story short -- Pat ROCKS and you NEED this album!!!

PROS:
"Treat Me Right," "You Better Run," "La Bel Age," "Looking For A Stranger" & "Sex As A Weapon" are ALL included here. ALL we're always left off of every single disc compilation I've ever seen. The delightful "One Love (Lion's Song)" is also present. (The inclusion of "La Bel Age"--by far my favorite Benatar tune--earns this disc it's 5th star.) The remastering is truly first class. Sounds excellent! Current & past female singers give testimonials in the cool liner notes (which include chart positions, dates, albums of origin, etc.) This is the only Benatar disc most of us will ever need.

CONS:
Some of the tracks are single edits (which is to be expected with 20 songs). The only one that is noticibly chopped up is "...Battlefield." However, it is the same single edit that has been played on the radio since 1983. As others have mentioned, the disc only covers the years 1979-1989. But it does a nice job cataloguing Pat's most successful era. The only odd selection here is "Precious Time" (which clocks in at nearly 6 minutes). It's a good song with a nice guitar solo, but I don't remember it from 1981. I would have dropped it, included the long version of "Battlefield" (which was Pat's defining MTV moment) and maybe "I Need A Lover" from the first album, or some other well known track.

Hard rock is generally considered a male domain--but there have always been exceptions, women who transcended the rules of what is "appropriate" to their gender. From Janis Joplin to Lita Ford, from Patti Smith to the Wilson sisters, the list is a long an honored one, and when the final roll is taken Pat Benatar will be right up there with the best, both male and female.

Popular singers have always worked to conceal their vocal limitations, and in the arena of hard rock this usually involves growls and snarls. Benatar can growl and snarl with the best, but there is no question of artistic limitation: the woman can sing, and that's flat. In the 1980s Rolling Stone magazine stated that she had "some of the best pipes in the business," and if you ever had any doubt about it GREATEST HITS will put them to rest for once and all. Be it stripped down, elemental hard rock and roll or smooth and glossy pop, everything is up front, seemingly effortless, simply there with a shining purity and without studio "touch ups" or anything else that smacks of artifice. Indeed, having seen her perform more than once, I can personally attest to the fact that Benatar is one of the rare concert acts that sounds the same on the stage as she does on the recording.

Benatar's heyday began in the late 1970s when she shocked hard rock fans with scorching, high energy vocals performed against a stripped-down, slap-your-face guitar and drum sound; even "We Live For Love," one of her softer efforts of her early era, is soft only in comparison with her own work, far outstripping what most female vocalists were doing at the time. Benatar's specialty was a blast you feel like a karate chop to the throat: "Heartbreaker" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" are speaker-blowers if ever there were ones. Over time, Benatar expanded her sound to include glossier tunes as well, with "We Belong" a case in point--and she was fortunate in her decision to keep the ubiquitious synthesizers of the era to a minimum, with the result that she is one of the few 1980s artists whose music doesn't sound distinctly dated. Whether "Fire and Ice" or "Shadows of the Night," you have the distinct feeling that these recordings would still be hits if they were newly released today.

"Greatest Hits" collections generally suffer from what they leave out; there is always something you wish was included but was not. In my case, it would be the jarring "Get Nervous"--not a big charter but a knock-out cut just the same. Even so, this collection is remarkably credible in its scope, including virtually every cut that says Pat Bentar to both fans and casual listeners. And the remastering is a work of art, simply flawless. Whether you're a newcomer or an old fan who simply wants the major recordings in a single set, this is the one.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I thought that they made a solid collection this time of Pat Benatar's greatest hits! They sure packed a lot on here for 79 minutes, because this whole CD rocks! This is far better than the '89 album of some of the same songs. A lot of my favorites such as Heartbreaker, Hell is For Children, the aggressive Promises in the Dark, Fire and Ice, Treat Me Right, the electrifying drums-heavy Sex As A Weapon, Invincible, We Belong, You Better Run, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, We Live For Love--can I stop now? What also wins on this collection is that her husband Neil Girardo produced and wrote many of these songs, with or without Pat. And even in her band! How many husband/wife teams can do rock and roll like these two do? For that I have more respect for Pat's music because of Neil's involvement. Even her later offerings All Fired Up are dynamite. I went nuts when she won her first Grammy Award, because her songs were tops! And that she won three more Grammys in later years too still bowls me! I still can't believe that Le Bel Age peaked at #54 on the pop chart, because that song still rocks 20 years later. It could have gone up to 5 or 10, but not everyone was ready for the all out assault the song has. The mastering is clear and excellent--it doesn't sound like they recorded from the vinyl albums and had static. You hear all the drums, lead guitars, and musicians playing in the mastering and mixing. Benatar still performs today and she still likes the guitars turned up LOUD!!!!This collection demonstrates why she's been an important part of music the past 25 years or so!

I do remeber HELL IS FOR CHILDREN as I survived child abuse from my dad and a divided family. My mom was nice to me, however. I was living with my ex-wife, yet this song moved me to the point of tears when I did hear it-that someone actually acknowledged the problems of abused children. Yet pops did not actually bribe me with gifts to shut me up! My dad seemed to be my enemy almost all the way up to his death. And I felt victory when I saw him dead in his casket!
Pat was performing at a night club called KIP'S on Secor Road near the U of Toledo when I started college. A former friend of mine seemed to like her music quite a bit.
I had purchased BEST SHOTS and was not actually pleased with it. At my age and experience I seemed to collect greatest hits albums instead of buying series' of musicians' albums like I used to do when I had records. But this is a very satifying album.
My ex-wife and I started out with the philosophy WE LIVE FOR LOVE when we married in 1978. But people meddled and it turned into LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD! I know about being young and in love and how some older people liked to push young people around as well.
Then I was moved by LA BEL AGE, although the meaning of the title escapes me. And a few years later, my life would have to slow down because of health problems. Some how my grad school seemed to be the climax of my achievements in life.
SEX AS A WEAPON reminds of a cruel little game the teasing pretty young blonde coeds started playing with me in grad school in 1986. It seemed like some evil witch took some cues from this song to use against me!
But THE OOH OOH SONG, I had seen on VH1 Classics years ago; and this was part of the reason I bought this CD was because of the cute song.
It is a sexy album. And I know that when I first started playing it in my home, some queer across the street would start coming outside and screaming at my house that all that I think about it sex! And I am not gay!
From what I saw on VH1 Classics I could see that Pat lives a well adjusted life with her husband and daughters. This is a good thing. A nice person with nice music. Didn't she take opera singing lessons? A very good quality singer in addition to being very sexy!

This was exactly what I wanted!! It brought back great memories. Excellent buy!!