Then one day, Pat
Benatar discovered the synthesizer.
It was hot '80s spandex love at first sight. This strange, enigmatic device transformed her already
somewhat not very hard rocking hard rock into something even less
rocking. But together, Benatar and the synthesizer teamed up to help rescue the Western World from the iron grip of
the Nazi menace (as a bomber pilot, as Rosie the Riveter ... does it
really matter?).
From the battlefields of '40s Europe
to the battlefields of '80s New York, Benatar wasn't going to take this shit lying down. I wouldn't really say that love is a battlefield, though. Love is
more like an abstract philosophical concept, but then again, I'm not
wearing 40 necklaces and repelling gold-toothed bartenders with my boobs, am I?
"We Belong" sounds like it lifted the "sped-up guitar" trick from KC & The Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight," but most people probably can't tell the difference between a sped-up guitar and a synthesizer anyway. In the second half of the video, Benatar finds herself inside the cover of one of
your middle school notebooks. Apparently, in the hell that is for
children, there are also lots of waterfalls.
But somehow,
in the midst of some the most '80s sounding music ever made, Benatar
released a song that does not sound like the '80s in any way whatsoever. So puzzled must she have been by its existence, she didn't even know what to call it. She just called it "Ooh Ooh Song."
At first, opening with some crunchy guitar strums, "Ooh Ooh Song"
sounds like it's going to be a hard rocking track, but
that all goes out the window with the entrance of a retro-sounding
keyboard and a snare-driven rockabilly beat. Who did she think she was,
the Stray Cats? Did someone mislabel the master tape from the latest
Rosanne Cash recording session? There's even a verse in Spanish (!). Remarkably, the video is about as free of '80s elements as the song is.
Seriously, the lighting, the camera angles ... she's wearing overalls. Am I crazy in thinking this might be the best thing she
ever did?
One final note: it turns out that Pat Benatar
happened to publish a memoir of her own, Between A Heart And A Rock
Place, in June 2010, at almost exactly the same time as Belinda Carlisle
published Lips Unsealed. However tempting it may be, though, I refuse to
read it, for fear of developing another unhealthy obsession with an
'80s female singer. Sorry Pat, there's only room for one sleazy '80s
memoir in this blogger's heart.
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