Customer Reviews

Live From Earth

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

 

 

Now revered for her live vocal dexterity & passionate showcases, this album does not reflect the true electricity of Benatar's stage presence - for that catch her new DVT or indeed the 1983 DVD release Live! From New Haven. The audibility of this album is not the best & sound mixing brings instruments to the fore too much, hence sometimes over-shadowing Benatar's raucous voice. What the cd is worthy for however is the inclusion of Promises In The Dark (not on the live! DVD) & 2 new offerings - the instantaneous classik Love Is A Battlefield & a saccharine pop-type song called Lipstick Lies - even as a die-hard fan I find this one quite hard to stomach. It would have been nice if this album had been the entire show on cd as a momento of the tour - rather, snippets here & there do not give the oomph which reflects a real night on the town with her royalness, Pat Benatar

"Live From Earth" provides eight tracks from Pat Benatar's 1982-83 tour, at which point the tiny dynamo had put out four albums, with the last three having made it to the top four ("Precious Time" went all the way to #1). The album made it to #13 on the Billboard album charts, which is not bad in comparison. For me the chief attraction is hearing Benatar sing without all the dubbing that happens in the studio. So the net effect is listening to raw Benatar (as distinct from unplugged, which I can tell you is pretty good after having heard her at Lillith Fair).

I find it interesting that given that Benatar almost always begins her albums with a power house number, two of which are on this album ("Promises in the Dark" and "Heartbreaker"), that she chooses instead to start the night with "Fire and Ice" and leaves the aforementioned songs for a strong finish. The most impressive part of the album is when Benatar and her band start stringing songs together with "I Want Out," ""We Live for Love," and "Hell is For Children." A few of the songs are a little bit different, and "Lookin' for a Stranger" and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" have a little more punch than the originals.

The 1983 album ends with a couple of studio tracks, her hit single "Love Is a Battlefield," which made it to #5, and "Lipstick Lies," which is not exactly a bad filler. Even though eight live tracks is pretty paltry and adding the studio tracks violates the whole point of the album, I end up rounding up because of the latter. It is a close call, and being a big Benatar fan probably has something to do with it because only one of those is going to be interested in this album in the first place.

Length:: 1:25 Mins

Does anyone know if there are plans to remaster this album - as far as I am concerned, Pat Benatar's album discography ends with this album. I just purchased In the Heat of the Night, Crimes of Passion, and Precious Time (finally as individually remastered albums) but I am still waiting on Get Nervous and Live from Earth. You may note that the listing here on Amazon for Get Nervous says remastered but the album specs still put a release date of October 25, 1990 so I am not going to purchase it until that is cleared up. I realize that there are those "pairs" of Benatar remastered albums but I am a purist. I had all of these Pat Benatar albums on vinyl as a kid (first LP my Dad ever bought for me was Crimes of Passion) and want the individual equivalents on CD (but with the remastered sound quality). I'd appreciate anyone with knowledge on these remastering issues.

In 1983, Pat Benatar gave us for fifth album entitled, LIVE FROM EARTH. As it would turn out, this album is Pat's first-ever live album. The first eight tracks on this album are that of live performances from a concert (that is unknown to me), where the last two tracks are two new studio recorded performances. I didn't think this album would be all that impressive, but it turned out to be better than I expected.

FIRE AND ICE
Original version from the album PRECIOUS TIME (1981). Great live performance here.

LOOKIN' FOR A STRANGER
Original version from the album GET NERVOUS (1982). Awesome live performance.

I WANT OUT
Original version from the album GET NERVOUS (1982). Great.

WE LIVE FOR LOVE
Original version from the album IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1979). Great performance.

HELL IS FOR CHILDREN
Original version from the album CRIMES OF PASSION (1980). Great live performance.

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT
Original version from the album CRIMES OF PASSION (1980). Not a bad performance, but I'm not very fond of this song.

PROMISES IN THE DARK
Original version from the album PRECIOUS TIME (1981). Awesome performance.

HEARTBREAKER
Original version from the album IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1979). Awesome performance. Does plenty of justice to the studio recorded version.

LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD
New Song; Studio Recorded. First single from the album. This is not a bad song, but it's not one of my favorites. I guess the reason to why I am fond of this song is because it was featured in the film 13 GOING ON 30, which I thought was a great movie.

LIPSTICK LIES
New Song; Studio Recorded. Great song.

The first thing that strikes you about this album is what a powerful performer Benatar was and is. Her voice belies her small stature and she can really belt it out. The whole live portion of this album is very dynamic and exciting. The stand out tracks are `Heartbreaker' and `We Live for Love': much more powerful and confident performances compared to her first album on which she sounded decidedly nervous and unclear of what persona to project. `Fire and Ice', 'Promises in the Dark' and `Looking for a Stranger' also are exciting performances. `Hell is for Children' unfortunately had become a bit of an anthem and somehow is not all that satisfying and `Hit Me with Your Best Shot' is very disappointing - not a patch on the Crimes of Passion original.

Also the sound is quite muddy with very unclear 'wedges' of sound from Geraldo's guitar - too many effects on his instrument in my opinion.

The two last tracks are not live at all but tacked on studio efforts. `Love is a Battlefield' was a so-so single and not really very good. `Lipstick Lies', though I have to admit I rather like and it has an incredibly catchy tune - her words are better than usual too.

In short, if you like Benatar, you will probably like this album, but I doubt she will make any converts if this is all you hear.