I admit it. Whilst I was indulging in puberty and my teenage
years, I had a huge crush on Pat Benatar. She could rock and roll,
and she was just cute as heck. Somewhere in there, though, Pat and
I both got older, and I lost my interest in her (I think I moved on
to Kate Bush at that point). Even now, however, I’ll turn up the
radio if someone plays some of her stuff; she has always had a
wonderful, fierce voice and competent musicianship to back it
up.
However, I am always leery of comeback CDs. For every one that’s
interesting, there are five that make you wonder why in the world
the artist didn’t just stay retired and work on their golf swing or
something. So it was with some trepidation that I approached the
first Pat Benatar CD in six years,
Go. Could Pat pull it off, or was this another comeback
attempt that should have stayed on the shelf?
First off, let’s get one thing out of the way; this is not just
a Pat Benatar CD. Husband, guitarist, soulmate, and longtime band
member Neil Giraldo has co-writing credits on all the tracks on
Go, and his churning guitar is in the evidence from the
first track. That minor quibble satisfied, I am pleased to report
that on the whole this is a pretty darn tasty piece of work.
Benatar rocks hard on
Go; perhaps harder than she has since 1988’s
Wide Awake In Dreamland. Sure, there are a few softer songs
plainly intended for radio and mainstream consumption, specifically
“Brave” and “Please Don’t Leave Me,” but most of
Go is straight-ahead rock and roll, heavily laced with
Giraldo’s incendiary guitar work and competent, albeit undermixed,
percussion. The centerpiece is really Benatar’s vocals — she
hasn’t lost a metaphorical step, and on songs like “I Won’t” and
“Have It All,” she is alternately precise and purring and snarling
and driving. The vocal transformation on “Have It All” is worth
especial note; she starts the song in a gentle, almost delicate,
breathy vocal, and in the space of three words becomes a valkyrie
of volume. Impressive.
Other tracks worthy of mention include the almost-waltz of “Out
Of The Ruins”; the blues-driven “In My Dreams”; the wistful “Tell
Me”; and “Sorry,” whose ephemeral acoustic guitar intro turns into
a driving, throbbing flamenco tour de force.
There is one glaring miscue on the CD — thank whatever gods you
serve that it’s the ‘hidden track’, the maudlin, puerile, and
saccharine “Christmas In America.” While I understand that it’s a
September 11 and New York City tribute, couldn’t we have come up
with something that didn’t sound like the musical background for a
700 Club animated Christmas card? Yecch. With that one
exception, however,
Go is an excellent effort and shows that Benatar still
rocks. It comes highly recommended.
