Customer Reviews

Precious Time

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is Pat Benatar at her finest! From Promises in the Dark to her excellent cover of the Beatles Helter Skelter this album is great from beginning to end and perfect to take along on a road trip. It will keep you rocking from beginning to end. If you don't own anything else by her, this is the album to start your collection.

This album kicked ass back in the '80s. It's a hard rock classic. The gloves came off for this one. Gone were the power pop arrangements of "Crimes of Passion". Neil cranked up the guitars and Pat cut loose. This is the album that convinced my mother that Pat was one of Satan's minions - no one else could scream or snarl quite like her.

Pat Benatar is one of those really talented singers that combine grittiness, toughness, & innocence at the same time. And PRECIOUS TIME clearly brings out her talents to the forefront.

A truly accomplished offering, PRECIOUS TIME combines the passionate vocals of Benatar along with the tight musical accompaniment of Neil Geraldo & company. THe title track & "Evil Genius" are just great examples of how great Benatar & the boys are.

PRECIOUS TIME is pure magic.

There are more women then ever in hard rock today, but in the 70/80's, there were only a limited number of women in hard rock/metal. Heart started the idea, and a few others picked up on it. Lita Ford was the pop metal queen of the late 80's, but Pat Benatar was the greatest female hard rock act of the era of classic rock. She sings with an intensity most men can't match. Her band was very talented, and played in a style similer to such acts as Sammy Hagar, Billy Squier, and Foreigner. This album was her biggest chart topper. It was a hard rock staple for many fans. I knew more men that liked her music then women, but people like Pat Benatar seem to make more women listen to heavy rock. If you want to have a complete classic heavy rock collection, you will have to get some Benatar. This album has such gems as: "Evil Genius", "Take it anyway you want it", and "Tough life".

I was helping my little 3 year old daughter build some legos the other afternoon, and out of the blue she started singing, 'heartbreaker, dream maker, love taker, don't ya messa around me', off key but I immediately recognized it. I sat her in front of youtube to watch a video of Pat and she was in awe. Very cute indeedy. But watchin those vids brought back some great memories and I had to get the album. I once had almost all of them on vinyl and wow, to rock to them again in 2009 . . . damn, Precious Time rocked! Prolly the best of all of them. There are 9 songs on this album and 9 songs on this album rock. Thanks Ms Benatar for this timeless creation.

Pat Benatar released a string a solid & successful hard-rocking albums in the early 80's with Precious Time being the best of the bunch. "Promises In The Dark" is a frenzied rocker that starts the album on a good foot. "Fire & Ice" follows it and is a great showcase for her powerful voice. The song's title fits the pace of the song as it coolly slithers along before Ms. Benatar heats things up in the chorus. The title track is a solid rocker, but she missteps on the cover of The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" as she misses the down & dirty feel of the original. She does better on a cover of an old Paul Revere & The Raiders' "Just Like Me" singing with an appropriate amount of sass. Precious Time was her only number one album and it established as the queen of rock for her era.

Pat Benatar's 1981 album "Precious Time" turned out to be her only #1 album. Unfortunately it does not receive it's due. It doesn't contain any classics the way that Crimes Of Passion does, and it doesn't have any big hits like Get Nervous, Tropico or In The Heat Of The Night do, but I still think this album is amazing.

She carries on the sound from Crimes Of Passion, so if you like that album, you'll like this. There were two hit singles, Fire And Ice and Promises In The Dark. Promises stands as one of Pat's greatest recordings. The gem of the album is the title track, a 6 minute track. Keeping with the spirit of Crimes Of Passion, she also does two great covers, Just Like Me and Helter Skelter.

The album mostly was a holding pattern from Crimes Of Passion but that doesn't mean it wasn't a fantastic album. You can hear hints of the style she was going into the next album, Get Nervous, in "Evil Genius". She even dabbles in reggae with It's A Tuff Life.

If you love Pat Benatar, this album is a must have in your collection. You may not be as familiar with the singles off this as her other albums from 1979-1985, but you'll still be in a treat

I would have to agree with many people in saying that this was probably Pat's best album, hands-down. The gloves came off, the music is rocking, and Pat can scream with the best of them. I thought that she did an absolutely awesome cover of "Helter Skelter", just great. I especially love the way she displays her voice on "Promises In The Dark", when she almost literally screams the lyrics in the middle, proving that those opera lessons were not wasted on her, and in fact made her what she is. Rock on Pat!

PRECIOUS TIME is Pat Benatar's third great CD in a row. "Promises In The Dark" is about betrayal and deceit, and the title song, could in the wake of the trumped-up 2005 Indonesian drug-smuggling conviction of a young Australian tourist, be interpreted as a woman telling her boyfriend, "If you won't change our honeymoon from Bali to Hawaii, I'm getting rid of you." This album, which seems influenced by Steve Miller circa BOOK OF DREAMS, Ted Nugent's first three albums, and the harder side of Heart, was Benatar's last great album. She put out some excellent ones after this, but never quite attained the quality and consistency of the first three again.

Pat Benatar's third album in three years definitely showed signs of the strain of her contractual obligations. While a couple of tracks are absolutely outstanding, it is mostly a poor cousin to her first two. The song-writing is often shakey and the lyrics, particularly, too often tend toward being naff.

Generally, it continues the stylistic approach of its predecessor, `Crimes of Passion', including having Keith Olsen at the production desk again. Though, he is joined this time by her very talented guitarist, co-writer and partner, Neil Geraldo. The triumvirate of Benatar, Geraldo and drummer Myron Grombacher again power the record, but despite its soaring high points, there is something limp about it in total.

This album screeches out of the gates with the savagery of its opener, `Promises in the Dark'. Benatar's vocals have possibly never been as screamingly hard rock as they are on this superb song. With its melodramatically threatening lyrics and searing guitar, it sets up the raw conviction with which she delivers all of the songs on this flawed record. It is followed by the slower paced, but equally dramatic and impressive `Fire and Ice'. The harshly handled cover of the 1967 Paul Revere and the Raiders hit, `Just Like Me', continues the pace and attack before things drop off with corporate songwriter, Bill Steinberg's mundane `Precious Time' - though Benatar's vocal performance rescues it from mediocrity. The first side/half finishes on another high with Neil Geraldo's bitchy hard rock reggae fusion, `It's A Tuff Life'. Unfortunately, other than a suitably aggressive closing cover of The Beatles' `Helter Skelter', the rest of the songs feel rushed and underwritten, verging on being downright poor at times (`Evil Genius', `Hard to Believe').

The cover art tended to indicate a disconnect between her music and her visual image as well - aggressive hard rock and slightly conservative high fashion? It was just a bit too off track to qualify as surprising. The 2006 remaster is strong and clear.