Wide Awake In Dreamland

 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• ASIN: B001BPT5T0
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,489 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Benatar's best, November 9, 2011

By 

B. S. Marlay (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wide Awake In Dreamland (Audio CD)

Wide Awake in Dreamland' is pretty much Pat Benatar's best album. Coming three year's after her 7th, 1985's rousing pop-rock `Seven the Hard Way', it marked not only the end of a relatively long absence for the artist who had previously put out a record a year since 1979's debut, `In the Heat of the Night', but also a surprising maturation in style.

This was her fourth album produced by Peter Coleman and he is joined here by her guitarist/husband Neil Geraldo. After three albums more attuned to pop, `Wide Awake in Dreamland' predominantly returns her to her original style of rock with attitude - though not quite the hard rock of early discs such as `Crimes of Passion' and `Precious Time'. This is more nuanced, sophisticated and is massively elevated by the use of male backing vocals, rather than the usual multi-layered recording of the lead singer herself. It sticks to the band's tried and true formula of rock, ballads and dabblings in genre-hopping - predominantly band-penned tracks mixed in with a smattering of covers and pro-written songs. But it had never come together with quite the panache that it does on this selection.

Though Neil Geraldo is responsible for co-writing seven of the ten tracks, it is drummer Myron Grombacher's contribution to his seven (many the same) that seems to boost the impact of the album - not dissimilar to his contribution on `Seven the Hard Way'. It is hard not to think he is behind the variety of rhythms on this record, one of its most intoxicating features. Additionally, unlike her other recordings, there is not even the remotest hint of lyrical awkwardness here.

It begins with the driving rock of `All Fired Up', followed by the glossy middle of the road synth-heavy `One Love (Song of the Lion)', which is the closest thing to being out of place on this record. Things pick up again with the heavily percussive and slightly tribal, `Let's Stay Together', and the soaring ballad, `Don't Walk Away', written by Nick Gilder who was behind `Rated X' on her first album. The stirring, epic and dramatic anti-war song, `Too Long A Soldier' follows - one of the very best things the band (Geraldo/ Grombacher) ever wrote and that Benatar ever recorded. Then `Cool Zero' harks back to some of their new wave rock posturing of the past. `Cerebral Man', by an external writer, is a beautiful, tortured rock ballad with sumptuous, soulful male backing vocals - another brilliant high point. `Lift `Em On Up' is an infectious, rhythmic, heavily bass-driven rocker which is followed by Benatar's second anti child abuse song, the heartfelt and haunting `Suffer the Little Children' (the other being 1980's `Hell is for Children'). It all closes with the title track, a deceptively simple 4-4 rocker that ends leaving you wanting more.

This is really a very fine adult rock album. If you own nothing else by Pat Benatar, `Wide Awake in Dreamland' is definitely the one to get.

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to find, February 4, 2011

By 

K. Marcoux (So Cal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wide Awake In Dreamland (Audio CD)

If you like Pat then you own this already. If you don't own it yet, buy it and enjoy. To me this cd sounded like the beginning of a transition period. Kind of a mix between the old and new.