Top Pat Benatar Songs of the 1980s

Pat Benatar still proudly shines as one of the most durable musical icons of the first half of the 1980s. Even better, her 1980s songs have stood the test of time quite admirably, favorably influencing scores of female pop and rock singers who followed her. It's always a heated argument among rock music devotees as to whether Benatar's early arena rock scorchers, power ballads or latter-day pop masterpieces are the preferable listening material, but it's to the singer's credit that high quality remained a constant attribute of her evolving career. Here's a chronological look at Benatar's finest songs of the decade.

01
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"Heartbreaker"

Pat Benatar
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This solid rocker, the first hit single of Benatar's career (from 1979's In the Heat of the Night), also happens to be one of her finest. It may have reached only No. 23 on the Billboard pop charts in early 1980, but it filled an important void in rock music at the time: a female singer capable of delivering hard rock attitude, muscular chops and a distinct sense of melody, all at the same time. For these quality reasons, Benatar made an immediate splash on the pop music scene, and this song was a highly appropriate introduction. Boasting guitar swagger, clever riffing, and plenty of successfully aggressive hooks, the track simply works across the board for an array of rock music audiences, dismantling gender barriers along the way.

02
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"Treat Me Right"

Benatar continued to demand considerable feminine respect through a developing tough-broad persona, unleashing another fine guitar-fueled rocker in this sterling album track from 1980's sophomore release, Benatar's classically trained powerhouse of a voice somehow combined perfectly with gritty hard rock guitar and aggressive songwriting to bypass completely the contemporary pitfalls of the cheesy sides of arena rock and pop-metal. Instead, the singer presents a lively jolt of melodic hard pop that comes across as both classy and exciting in its intensity. Of all the female stars of the 80s who became feminist icons, Benatar is arguably the most straightforward and lacking in contradictions.

03
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"You Better Run"

Aside from a notable claim to fame as the song whose music video was the second to be played at MTV's launch, this track sparkles as a quintessential Benatar moment of guitar bravado. In her hands, this cover of a Rascals tune certainly qualifies as a bona fide hard rock thanks to the active and rather blistering guitar work as well as Benatar's precise and powerful pipes. At the same time, however, its tremendous pop sensibility makes it absolutely no mystery as to how the singer has become one of the most influential female rock singers of all time. This is the tremendously entertaining rock that stands the test of time so much better than almost any of the music in the hard rock category that followed it during the 80s.

04
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"Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

If "Heartbreaker" set the tone perfectly for Benatar's career, this Top 10 single represented a clear crystallization of the core of the singer's appeal. Specifically, the song's lyrical theme of female power in the dangerous arena of competitive romance fits Benatar's forceful vocal style like a spandex glove. The hyperbolic use of sports metaphor helps take the tune to another level, allowing the playful use of language to mingle effectively with the singular melodic majesty of the chorus. Once again, Benatar's unprecedented genius was in hitting on all possible cylinders of mainstream rock appeal, successfully coming across as sexy, mysterious and tough in a favorable way to all audiences.

05
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"Shadows of the Night"

With her fourth full-length release, 1982's Get Nervous, Benatar began to inject keyboards far more noticeably into her sound, thereby moving away from the hard rock guitar crunch of her earliest work to a very tuneful pop/rock hybrid. This highly listenable track may represent the purest example of this sonic marriage, undoubtedly feature one of the finest melodies in the sizable Benatar canon. At this point, Neil Giraldo, the singer's bandmate and future husband began to take a stronger production role, and his contributions to the arrangement also help to make it one of Benatar's most essential tunes. Listen to the build-up from verse to chorus for one of '80s rock's most satisfying moments.

06
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"Love Is a Battlefield"

For better or for worse, Benatar certainly began to sound far more of the '80s as the decade wore on. That is, by the time this late 1983 track became a No. 5 pop hit, the hard rock swagger of her work just a couple of years earlier had melted away into a rather sweetly melodic vocal and musical approach. The goofy visuals of the accompanying music video (complete with choreographed dance moves) didn't necessarily help, either, in terms of Benatar's continuing rock credibility or lack thereof. Nonetheless, it's difficult to deny the propulsive nature of the song and its justifiably ubiquitous status on the pop landscape at the time. Plus, it must have been hard for Benatar to resist the lure of her career's pop evolution.

07
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"We Belong"

Even though Benatar did not write a whole lot of her most popular material, she always showed a great ear for choosing songs of strong compositional quality. This track, the singer's second and final Top 5 pop hit of her career, again reflects this keen sense of judgment. And even if it stands as one of Benatar's most strikingly guitarless numbers, it also works quite well on its own merit as a memorable, signature pop performance. It's too bad that the singer began to fade somewhat as the mid-'80s shifted its focus anew to hard rock, but there's no doubt Benatar's strong feminine persona had no prayer of succeeding within the misogynistic yet fluffy confines of hair metal.