Pat Benatar-Crimes of Passion (1980)
Artist: Pat Benatar
Title: Crimes of Passion
Year of Release: 1980
Country and Year of Edition: US 1980 Blue 3-pin cartridge
Sell Price: $3.14
Sell Date: 11/25/24
Condition: VG/VG untested
Discogs Last Sold: 7/29/23 VG+/no cover $2.00
Low: $2.00
Median: $2.24
Average: $2.41
High: $3.14
Current low price: $2.99
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 6
Have/Want: 96/27
Where Sold: Danville, WV
Time It Took To Sell: 2 months
Where and When Bought: ebay 8-track lot
Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-
Sad To See It Go: No
Pat Benatar's sophomore album Crimes of Passion is probably her best album. I couldn't get enough of it in later elementary school, but I don't think I've actively listened to it since around Jr. High in 1982. That said, my first band Suck lovingly covered "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and put it on our debut cassette.
Listening to this 8-track today, which I somehow accumulated 2 copies of in recent months, confirmed what I already knew. I know every song on this record cold as I do Precious Time and Get Nervous but not In The Heat Of The Night or Tropico which was my final Benatar purchase. A good 5 years I held her in high regard from 1979 all the way to 1984. I even gave her a second shot after thinking Live From Earth and "Love Is A Battlefield" sucked the high hard one.
Like most artless AOR titans of the late 70's/early 80's with top 40 leanings, Crimes of Passion had enough guitar to override the pop element that started to fade as the 80's progressed and my tastes went leftward. The song we loved as kids was "Hell Is For Children" with such great couplets as "they blacken your eyes/and then apologize" as well as "be a good little girl/and don't tell mommy a thing/be a good little boy/and you'll get a new toy/tell grandma you fell off the swing!" What heartless 10 year old didn't have an affinity for that in 1980? Well, what white 10 year old anyway?
As usual with 8-tracks, the song order is shuffled so instead of closing side one, "Hell Is For Children" is pushed to the second to last song on track 4. The fade out song, "Prisoner of Love" goes chopped at track 2 and fades back track 3. I still remember that one just as much as anything else even though I probably haven't heard it since 1982 or 3. The top 40 hits besides the #9"Hit Me..." were "You Better Run" (well ok close #42 Billboard) and "Treat Me Right" (#18).
As for the rest, well she doesn't outdo Kate Bush on "Wuthering Heights" but certainly people heard hers more in 1980, but now in streaming Kate blows Pat out of the water roughly 52 million to half a million. The other big rocker here is out of "Out-A-Touch" that closed side 2 but on 8-track is in the middle of the second track. "I'm Gonna Follow You" is so familiar I can't remember if it was a AOR hit back then or if I just knew it from taking it out of the library before I got a copy from Columbia House. "Never Want To Leave You" and "Little Paradise" are credible and remembered tracks and they are bottom of the barrel here. I would say this dropped ever so slightly in my estimation overall from my childhood self, but not as much as, say, Double Vision by Foreigner. I never purged her first 4 albums from my collection in my later teen years.
Just enough straight rock to be alright by me to hear every 40 or so years.
FOR FURTHER REVIEW:
Bob Weir-Heaven Help The Fool (1978)
Foreigner-Double Vision (1978)
Soundtrack-Spring Break (1983)
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