Pat Benatar - Crimes of Passion

The good news is that i found my keys after 5 days of searching and i have a record to listen to for each one of them, the bad news is that there was a devastating earthquake in Turkey/Syria. Cringe away, i only said it like that to highlight the disparity between my piddly-assed "bad brain days" and real life tragedy. You don't slap a karma flavored bandaid over it. It's heartbreaking, and i hope we can put aside any pretense of political posturing to aid in any way we can. So please, take my silly stories for what they are, levity and perspective from a grumpy old man who only pretends to be old and mostly isn't grumpy at all. Existentially tired, sure, but rarely actually grumpy. 

"Psssst. Bottle. I'll give you 2 Pat Benatars, a Melissa Manchester, a Jeff Beck, and whatever surprise Yoko has planned for 2 Jacksons and an Abraham." 

Sold! Who said that? Oh, probably that guy running off down the alley. Oh well, at least he wasn't kidding. At the very worst at least i retraced enough steps to find my keys near this particular dumpster. Sadly neither of these Pat Benatar albums is the one with We Belong on it, but then again Hell is for children to primal scream about later... i'm a little confused why Miss Man checked out of the motel, but that's for google to know and me to find out. Sadly, Mr. Beck recently skedaddled, but i'm always up for a guitslinger album. Any Yoko Ono is very Yoko Ono. Weird that these are all "solo albums," but the only real question is where to actually start. 

[Shoulder shrug] 

Eenie, meenie, miney, massion,

Guess we'll start with Crimes of Passion. 

I love Pat Benatar just about as much as i love the Carpenters, but for completely different reasons. Pat Benatar just flat out rocks. However, her sophomore album clearly is a concept, and i clearly have a terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, so vaaat are these crimes, and how are they passionate? Unnecessary but coincidentally apropos Kindergarden Cop reference, check. 

Codependency, stalking, domestic abuse, gaslighting, cheating and lying, literally Wuthering Heights, that's quite a rap sheet he's got there. Why can't Pat Benatar in good conscience sing a lot of these songs anymore? Because there's a fairly large segment of the population who just completely ignores the sarcasm and jumps straight to "you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals" in a not at all jokingly way. These aren't rally the clan songs, they're "you're a disgusting dirt bag" songs. Maybe not all of them, but you should definitely get the gist here. None of this is good, none of it constitutes treating anybody right, no one seriously says "i'm Cathy and you're Heathcliff, tee hee!" For non-literature fans, that's like saying "i'm Harley Quinn and you're the Joker, giggles!" It's not ok to not be on Lorena Bobbitt or Anita Hill's side of this argument, John Clarence, or whatever your two first names are. 

Whoa whoa whoa, check out that screenshot, i find it hard to believe this classic Hard Rock album qualifies as Children's Music. Welp, that inner Chrysalis plastic sleeve just crumbled apart in my hands, guess i'll grab a paper one from the unjacketed crate. Finally, press play. 

Oh so good. Seriously, the riffs, the solos, the rock steady drumming, this is crazy good for any time, let alone 1980 sandwiched between the death of disco on one side and the birth of synth pop on the other. And the sarcasm, the sweet sweet sarcasm. You're gonna say "whaaa?" and call me a lunatic, but this thing listens like an Iron Maiden album. No, it's not Metal, but it is a remarkably similar theatrical presentation. Don't quote me on this, but how could Prisoner of Love not be making fun of Linda Ronstadt's Prisoner in Disguise? Not like personally insulting her, but the joke is that it's a ditzy bubblegum song intentionally using all the prison, chain gang, ball and chain metaphors. And the whole thing ends with ramping intesity until the final "i need you!" explodes in over the top reverebed echoes punctuated by that ice pick squeal that can't possibly put you in mind of anything but the knife slash in the shower scene of Psycho. 

I called it a classic, and i was right. Crimes of Passion is a phenomenal album, Pat Benatar is amazing, that's all there is to it. Probably not what you were expecting to find in the Children's Music section, but what kid wouldn't prefer this to The Wiggles or Disney musicals? Go easy on the Hell, crank up the Rock, that's what i say. See you next time for another thing, and thanks for reading.