Pat Benatar - Prec CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

the music itself wasn't anything to get wound up about–it could hardly dull the collective unconsciousness any more than the tons of crap in its ancestry. The Benatar persona was the scary part. Ostensibly, the decade-plus of feminist activism prior to In the Heat of the Night had put some distance between women and helplessness, between men and machismo. Linda Ronstadt may have played the passive cutie at times during her rise in the early Seventies, but a modicum of compassionate intelligence and assertiveness lurked somewhere beneath the surface. Donna Summer ruled the last half of the decade as a pleasure queen yet handled that shtick with humor and benevolence. Then Benatar came on with the most heinous behavior of both sexes. Her tiny frame squeezed into Spandex and spike heels, her cupie-doll petulance, suggested a Scarlett O'Hara understudy. And in celebration of male stupidity, at least half the songs on the album were anthems of pugnacious vindication. Here was a pop heroine of the Eighties, supposedly – and, jeezus, she'd missed the point. While millions of kids were hanging on her every move.

Crimes of Passion was a little less of a horror story. (Except for the publicity stills, of course. Benatar languishing in leotards or tights and looking sultry was just more of the old garbage.) Mike Chapman and his production crew were gone, as was a lot of the bombast and melodrama in the tunes and the way they were delivered. There were fewer paeans to romantic revenge, not as much manipulative insolence. Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" was a glimmer from an unguarded heart, and Benatar, a classically trained soprano, offered an interpretation as affecting as the beautiful sound of her voice.

Precious Time takes the improvements in Crimes of Passion a tiny step further. Power pop tempers some of the power chording ("Hard to Believe," "Precious Time," "Take It Anyway You Want It"). The rock kicks ("Helter Skelter" especially) without any anatomical targets, while the helpless martyr puts in a brief appearance only during "Hard to Believe." In "Promises in the Dark," Pat Benatar and guitarist-coproducer Neil Geraldo provide an accurate, tender and grown-up account of a victim with every reason to feel