Pat Benatar

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE · July 5, 2010

Pat Benatar (born January 10, 1953) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning American singer that combined the power chords, tough sexuality, and powerful vocals of arena rock with polished mainstream pop/rock.^[1] She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States. Hit songs included "Love Is a Battlefield", "Hit Me with Your Best Shot", "We Belong" and "Heartbreaker". During the 1980s Benatar had two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums and 19 Top 40 singles.^[2] Benatar was one of the most heavily played artists in the early days of MTV ^[1].

Life and careerPatricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Andrew and Mildred Andrzejewski, a sheet-metal worker and a beautician.^[3] Her family moved to Lindenhurst, New York on Long Island, when she was 3 years old. "I have wonderful childhood memories of picking berries in the 'woods' by our house, driving to the 'docks' on the South Bay to get freshly harvested clams", she recounted once.^[^{citation needed}^]

Patti (as she was known) became interested in theater and began voice lessons, singing at Daniel Street Elementary School her first solo, a song called “It Must Be Spring,” at age eight. She said, "As a kid, I sang at any choir, any denomination, anywhere I could."^[^{citation needed}^] At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967-71), Benatar participated in musical theater, playing Queen Guinevere in the school production of Camelot, marching in the homecoming parade, singing at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, and performing a solo of "The Christmas Song" on a holiday recording of the Lindenhurst High School Choir her senior year.^[^{citation needed}^]

Benatar was cut off from the rock scene in nearby Manhattan though because her parents were "ridiculously strict - I was allowed to go to symphonies, opera and theater but I couldn't go to clubs".^[^{citation needed}^] Her musical training was strictly classical and theatrical. She said, "I was singing Puccini and West Side Story but I spent every afternoon after school with my little transistor radio listening to the Rolling Stones..."^[^{citation needed}^]

Training as a coloratura and accepted to The Juilliard School, Benatar surprised family, friends and teachers by deciding a classical career was not for her and pursued health education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At 19, after one year at Stony Brook, she dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, an army draftee who trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then served with the Army Security Agency at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, before being stationed at Fort Lee, Virginia. Specialist (E-4) Dennis Benatar was stationed there for three years, and Pat worked as a bank teller in Richmond, Virginia.

In 1973, Benatar quit her job as a bank teller to pursue a singing career after being inspired by a Liza Minnelli concert she saw in Richmond. She got a job as a singing waitress at a flapper-esque nightclub named The Roaring Twenties and got a gig singing in lounge band Coxon's Army, a regular at Sam Miller's basement club. The band garnered enough attention to be the subject of a never-aired PBS special, and the band's bassist Roger Capps also would go on to be the original bass player for the Pat Benatar Band. The period also yielded Benatar's first and only single until her eventual 1979 debut on Chrysalis Records: "Day Gig" (1974), Trace Records, written and produced by Coxon's Army band leader Phil Coxon and locally released in Richmond. Her big break came in 1975 at an amateur night at the renowned comedy club Catch a Rising Star in New York. Her rousing rendition of Judy Garland's "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody" earned her a call back by club owner Rick Newman, who would become her manager. Benatar said:

I came in from Virginia one night. I had straight red hair and I wore a dress. I sang a Judy Garland song and I don’t know what happened, I never sang in New York before in my life, even though I grew up there, everybody just went crazy. I didn't do anything spectacular. I don’t know what happened, it was just one of those magical things. [Rick Newman] came right in and said, 'Let's talk about you playing here some more...' Newman said, 'It was 2:45 in the morning. We had 30 performers and she was about #27. I was on the other side of the room drinking with some friends--then I suddenly heard this voice!'

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The couple headed back to New York following Dennis' discharge from the army, and Benatar went on to be a regular member at Catch A Rising Star for close to three years, until signing a record contract. Catch A Rising Star was not the only break Benatar got in 1975. She landed the part of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical, The Zinger.^[4] Benatar's first foray into rock. The production, which debuted on March 19, 1976, at the Performing Arts Foundation's (PAF) Playhouse in Huntington Station, Long Island, ran for a month and also featured Beverly D'Angelo and Christine Lahti. Benatar noted: "I was 22 by the time I started to sing rock, so at first I was very conscious of technique and I was overly technical. That proved to be inhibiting so it was a disadvantage until I began to sing intuitively. That’s the only way to sing rock – from your gut level feelings. It's the instinct that the best singers have."^[5]

Halloween 1977 proved a pivotal night in Benatar's early, spandexed stage persona. Rather than change out of the vampire costume she had worn to a Greenwich Village cafe party that evening, she went on-stage wearing black tights, black eyeliner and a short black top. Benatar has stated: “I was dressed as a character from this ridiculous B movie called Cat-Women of the Moon.”^[6] Despite performing her usual array of songs, she received a standing ovation. Benatar has said that "[T]he crowd was always polite, but this time they went out of their minds. It was the same songs, sung the same way, and I thought, 'Oh my god ... t's these clothes and this makeup!'"^[^{citation needed}^]

Between appearances at Catch A Rising Star and recording commercial jingles for Pepsi Cola and a number of regional concerns, she headlined New York City’s famous Tramps nightclub from March 29 - April 1, 1978, where her performance impressed representatives from several record companies. She was signed to Chrysalis Records by founder Terry Ellis the following week.^[7]"There was a long period of three years, when I spent my time taking demo tapes around and being rejected by one record company after another. Then just two days after the debut concert with the band, we were signed to a record contract...."^[^{citation needed}^] Recorded in June and July 1979, Benatar debuted the week of August 27, 1979 with the release of I Need A Lover from the album In the Heat of the Night. She said, "My album was the last of a bunch by female singers to come out so I was told not to expect much, even though Mike Chapman was producing."^[^{citation needed}^]

She won an unprecedented four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Rock Performance from 1980 to 1983 for her second LP, Crimes of Passion, and the songs "Fire and Ice", "Shadows of the Night", and "Love Is a Battlefield". Of the ten Grammy Award ceremonies in the 1980s, Benatar was nominated for Best Female Rock Performance eight times, including for "Invincible" in 1985, "Sex as a Weapon" in 1986, "All Fired Up" in 1988 and in 1989 for "Let's Stay Together".

Benatar also earned Grammy Award nominations in 1985 for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female with "We Belong" and in 1986 for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Duo or Group as a member of Artists United Against Apartheid for their single, "Sun City". Benatar is also the winner of three American Music Awards: Favorite Female Pop/Rock Vocalist of 1981 and 1983, and Favorite Female Pop/Rock Video Artist of 1985. Benatar was twice named Rolling Stone magazine's Favorite Female Vocalist, and Billboard magazine ranks her as the most successful female rock vocalist of all time based on overall record sales and the number of hit songs and their charted positions. ^[^{citation needed}^]

Pat Benatar was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame at the Second Induction Award Ceremony and Fundraising Gala held October 30, 2008. In her acceptance letter, she said, “My upbringing, and the values and ideals I learned back in my hometown kept me grounded. I never forget that a small town girl from Lindenhurst, LI actually got the chance to live her dreams.” ^[^{citation needed}^]

Family

Pat and Dennis Benatar divorced in 1979. Pat and band leader/lead guitarist Neil "Spyder" Giraldo married on February 20, 1982. They have two daughters, Haley Egeana (born February 16, 1985) and Hana Juliana (born March 12, 1994).

Discography

Main article: Pat Benatar discography

In the Heat of the Night

"I Need a Lover" was the first single to be released on August 27, 1979. However both it and the next single, "If You Think You Know How to Love Me" (October 1979), were unsuccessful. Benatar's third single "Heartbreaker" was released in early December 1979 and became an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the U.S. Benatar said "That was written by these two English guys, Gill and Wade, and it had all these little English colloquialisms that Americans would never say. So the publisher gave it to me to clean up, and I had to figure out all these lyrics. It was making me crazy. But I loved the song from the first time I heard it, so I rewrote the lyrics and we did the song as it appears here. It's one of my favorites." A fourth single "We Live for Love," which was written by her future husband Neil Giraldo, was released in February 1980, and reached US #27. Although Giraldo claims that it was written about her, Benatar has playfully accused him during interviews of having written the song long before they met, obviously about another woman.

Benatar's debut album In the Heat of the Night was released in October 1979, and reached #12. It established Benatar as a new force in rock. Producer Mike Chapman, who had worked with Blondie and The Knack, broke his vow not to take on any new artists when he heard Benatar's demo tape. Chapman personally produced three tracks on the album, while his long-time engineer and now independent producer, Peter Coleman (who also supervised Nick Gilder) oversaw the rest. In addition, Chapman and his partner, Nicky Chinn, wrote three songs that appear on the LP, "In the Heat of the Night" and "If You Think You Know How to Love Me" which were previously recorded by Smokie, as well as a rearranged version of a song they wrote for Sweet, "No You Don't". The album also featured two songs written by Roger Capps and Benatar as well as "I Need a Lover" written by John Mellencamp and "Don't Let It Show" written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. The album would be Benatar's first RIAA certified platinum album.

Crimes of Passion

In August 1980, Benatar released her second and most popular LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" along with the controversial song Hell is for Children, which was inspired by reading a series of articles in the New York Times about child abuse in America. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (U.S. #9) was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sold more than one million copies (at that time, gold status) in the United States alone. The album peaked at U.S. #2 for six consecutive weeks in January 1981 (behind Yoko Ono and John Lennon's Double Fantasy) and eventually sold over five million copies, and a month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1980. Other singles released from Crimes of Passion were "Treat Me Right" (US #18) and the Rascals' cover, "You Better Run" (US #42), which gained some later notoriety when it was the second music video ever played on MTV, after the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star".^[8]^[7]^[9] The album also featured a changed-tempo cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Produced by Keith Olsen, Crimes of Passion remained on the US album charts for 93 weeks and in the top 10 for more than six months, eventually becoming her second consecutive platinum certification by the RIAA. In October 1980, Benatar (along with future husband Neil Giraldo) graced the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Precious Time

In July 1981, she released her third LP, Precious Time. A month later the album hit #1 on the Billboard U.S. Top 200 LP chart. It was also her first to chart in the UK, reaching #30. The album's lead single, "Fire and Ice", was another big hit (US #17, AUS #30) and would win Benatar her second Grammy Award, this time for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1981 and her third consecutive RIAA certified platinum album. "Promises in the Dark" (US #38) was also released.

Benatar's video You Better Run, was the second video aired by MTV.^[8]

Get Nervous

A hit single, "Shadows of the Night", (US #13, AUS #19) heralded a new LP, Get Nervous, released in late 1982. The album was another smash, reaching US #4, her fourth consecutive RIAA platinum certification, and the single would garner Benatar yet another Grammy, again for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1982. The follow-up singles, "Little Too Late" and "Looking for a Stranger", were also successful, hitting US #20 and #39 respectively. The WWII-themed music video for "Shadows of the Night" featured then-unknown actors Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton as an American fighter copilot and a German radio operator, respectively.

Live from Earth

By 1983, Benatar had established a reputation for singing about "tough" subject matters, with a significant amount of songs featuring a "battle" metaphor. This was best exemplified by one of the biggest hits of her career, "Love Is a Battlefield" (penned by noted hit songwriter Holly Knight with Mike Chapman), released in December 1983. By then her sound had mellowed from hard rock to more atmospheric pop and the story-based video clip for "Love Is a Battlefield" was aimed squarely at MTV, even featuring Benatar in a Michael Jackson-inspired group dance number. This new pop direction was a huge commercial success, with the single peaking at #5 in the United States, and #1 in Australia for seven weeks. The song even gained some interest in the UK where it peaked at #49. The song would also net Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1983. A live album, Live from Earth, which was recorded during Benatar's sold-out Get Nervous world tour of America and Europe in 1982 and 1983, contained two studio tracks, "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Lipstick Lies." The album peaked at U.S. #13 and became her fifth consecutive RIAA platinum winner.

Tropico

In October 1984, the single "We Belong" became another Top 5 smash in the US, and reached #7 in Australia. It was also Benatar's first ever UK top 40 hit, where it peaked at #22. In November, Benatar released her sixth album, Tropico (US #14, AUS #9, UK #31). A second single release, "Ooh Ooh Song," reached U.S. #36. It is also said by Benatar and Giraldo that this album is the first where they moved away from Benatar's famed "hard rock" sound and start experimenting with new, sometimes "gentler," styles and sounds. Despite not making the US Top 10, it earned her a sixth consecutive RIAA platinum certification.

After the chart success of We Belong in the UK, Love is a Battlefield was re-released in early 1985 and became her highest chart hit there, reaching #17.

Seven the Hard Way

Benatar would hit the U.S. Top 10 with the #10 single "Invincible" (the theme from the movie, The Legend of Billie Jean) in 1985. "Sex As a Weapon" would climb as high as #28 in January 1986, and "Le Bel Age" (#54) in February. The album Seven the Hard Way peaked at #26, earning an RIAA Gold certification.

The title of the album is based on a bet in the game of craps: "Rolls of 4, 6, 8, and 10 are called "hard" or "easy" (e.g. "Six the Hard Way", "Easy Eight", "Hard Ten") depending on whether they were rolled as a "double" or as any other combination of values, because of their significance in center table bets known as the "hard ways"." The album was the band's seventh release in seven years. Benatar is holding a pair of dice on the album cover with three and a half dots each.

Wide Awake in Dreamland

In July 1988, Benatar released her eighth album, "Wide Awake in Dreamland" (US #28, UK #11). A single lifted from the album, "All Fired Up" (written by Kerryn Tolhurst, ex-The Dingoes) reached #19 in both the US and the UK, and was a #2 smash in Australia, becoming one of the biggest hits of 1988 in that country. Other singles released from the LP are "Don't Walk Away" (UK #42), "Let's Stay Together", and "One Love" (UK #59). The album also earned an RIAA gold certification.

True Love

True Love (US #37) was a jump blues record, released in late April 1991, and featured the blues band Roomful of Blues, backing up Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo and Myron Grombacher. The album sold over 339,000^[10] copies without any radio airplay and limited exposure on VH-1. "Payin' the Cost to Be the Boss," "So Long," and the title cut were released as singles. The album reached #40 in the UK.

Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow (US #85) was released in 1993 and was a return to the AOR genre. "Everybody Lay Down" was picked up by Album Rock radio and went all the way to #3. The single was never released to Top 40/Contemporary Hit Radio and a music video was never produced. "Somebody's Baby" was instead released as the single to Top 40 radio and a music video produced.

A third track was scheduled and a video shot for "Everytime I Fall Back", but the single was never released and the music video was lost when Chrysalis was sold to EMI records. Benatar had become pregnant again and this may have had an effect on her label's support of the album. This was Benatar's last album recorded for Chrysalis records. With very little promotion from Chrysalis, Gravity's Rainbow failed to have the same commercial success as Benatar's previous works. The album sold approximately 200,000 copies in the US.

Innamorata

Innamorata (US #171) was released in 1997 on the CMC International record label. A single video was produced for "Strawberry Wine (Life is Sweet)".

Go

Benatar has released only one album of new material since 1997's Innamorata, which is 2003's Go (US #187). The album included the 9/11 charity single, "Christmas in America" as a bonus track. A compilation video was produced for the single "Have It All", but was never released, the only video from this album is for the bonus track.

Greatest hits collections

Best Shots (US #67) was first released in the UK in 1987 and in the US in November 1989. The US version included 15 tracks on 1 CD, 1 live version of "Hell is for Children" with Suffer the Little Children intro, "Painted Desert" (from Tropico) and a remixed version of "Outlaw Blues" (also from Tropico) and would be another certified RIAA gold (later platinum) album. Best Shots became Benatar's biggest selling album in the UK, where it reached #6 and achieved Gold sales status. The album was also a top 20 hit in Australia. Best Shots was the only official greatest hits compilation until 1994 when All Fired Up: The Very Best of Pat Benatar was released (2 CD). The box set Synchronistic Wanderings (3 CD) was released in 1999. "Classic Masters" was released in October 2002, and "Pat Benatar - Greatest Hits" was released in June 2005. The most recent collection, "Ultimate Collection" (2 CD set) was released in June 2008 under the Capitol Records label with forty 24 bit-digitally remastered tracks.

Recent activity

Many best of/greatest hits compilations have been released over the years by Benatar's former record company. 2008's Ultimate Collection included the version of "Everytime I Fall Back" from her appearance on The Young and the Restless. In 2009, Benatar teamed up with Blondie for the "Call Me Invincible" tour, which also features The Donnas.^[11].

Benatar is scheduled to tour with REO Speedwagon during the Summer of 2010.^[12]

Memoir

In 2010 Benatar's memoir Between a Heart and a Rock Place was released. The book touches on Benatar's battles with record companies and the difficulties her career caused in her personal life. After initial reluctance to do the project the process was so enjoyable for her that she plans to write a novel.^[12]

Band

Although billed as a solo artist, Benatar recorded and toured with a consistent set of band members over most of her career, who contributed greatly to the writing and producing of songs and are recognizable characters on album photos and in many of her music videos.

Neil "Spyder" Giraldo (incorrectly spelled as "Geraldo" in early liner notes/credits) is the distinctive lead guitarist of the band and has performed on all of Benatar's albums. Born in Cleveland on December 29, 1955, Giraldo began playing the guitar at 6-years-old and learned to play the piano at age 12. Giraldo performed in Rick Derringer's touring band before working with Benatar, appearing in a possible bootleg entitled Derringer Live At The Paradise Theater Boston, Massachusetts, July 7, 1978 (UPC 672627400428). Giraldo's appearance on the video for Benatar's "You Better Run" distinguished him as the first guitarist on MTV. The video, the second ever aired on MTV, followed The Buggles, who had no guitar player. In addition to playing lead guitar, Giraldo is credited with composing and producing much of Benatar's work. Giraldo's first outside production credit was on John Waite's debut album Ignition. He has also given a helping musical hand to artists such as The Del-Lords, Rick Springfield, and Kenny Loggins. In addition, Giraldo was the musical composer for the 2005 movie Smile starring Beau Bridges, Linda Hamilton, Sean Astin and directed by Jeffrey Kramer. The soundtrack features an original song by Giraldo and Scott Kempner of The Del-Lords, appearing as The Paradise Brothers, titled "Beautiful Something." Proceeds from the movie go to Operation Smile. The Paradise Brothers also contributed a cover of "Light Of Day" for a Bruce Springsteen Tribute album.
Myron Grombacher, who played with Neil in Rick Derringer's touring band, is drummer on nine of Benatar's original albums and has numerous writing credits. Myron is easily recognizable in the music videos, particularly as the mad dentist in Get Nervous.
Charlie Giordano performed keyboard duties on five albums, and is identifiable by his glasses and distinctive array of berets, blazers and 80s-style ties. In 2007, he replaced the late Danny Federici in the E Street Band.
Mick Mahan is the band's bassist and has performed with Benatar since 1995. The original bassist, Roger Capps, was replaced by Donnie Nossov on Tropico, and then later by Frank Linx.
Scott St. Clair Sheets is credited on rhythm guitar on the first three albums.
Glen Alexander Hamilton played drums on the first album.

Other achievements

Benatar still writes and tours with her husband Neil Giraldo.

In the summer of 2005, the couple's older daughter Haley Giraldo starred in E!!'s reality TV series Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive.

Stage & screen, soundtracks, various credits

Benatar played the character Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical The Zinger. Set in a recording studio sometime around the year 2000, the production, which debuted on March 19, 1976, at the Performing Arts Foundation's (PAF) Playhouse in Huntington Station, Long Island, renamed the Harry Chapin Center, ran for a month and also featured Beverly D'Angelo and Christine Lahti. Benatar said, "It was great. I had an afro wig with glitter on! It was so fabulous." Benatar performed the solo "Shooting Star" in honor of Chapin for the Harry Chapin Tribute, Carnegie Hall, December 7, 1987.
In 1980, Benatar portrayed the character "Jeanette Florescu" in Marcus Reichert's film noir Union City, which featured Chrysalis Records labelmate Deborah Harry of Blondie in the starring role.
In 1982, the song 'Treat Me Right' and, very briefly, the Crimes of Passion album cover too, featured in the 1982 movie, An Officer and a Gentleman, starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger.
The soundtrack to Giorgio Moroder's 1984 restoration of Fritz Lang's 1926 classic Metropolis features Benatar performing two versions of the movie's love song "Here's My Heart," a pop version for the studio album and a classically-styled version used in the film.
In 1985, "Invincible" was the title track to the Helen Slater cult classic The Legend of Billie Jean.
Benatar is a performer on Sun City - Artists United Against Apartheid (1985).
Benatar contributed the original tune "Sometimes the Good Guys Finish First" to the 1987 Michael J. Fox film The Secret of My Succe$s soundtrack.
"Run Between the Raindrops" was featured on the soundtrack for The Stepfather (1987 film) ^[13]
Benatar performs "Jimmy Says" on Marlo Thomas & Friends - Free To Be A Family (1988)
In April 1989 she appeared in an ABC Afterschool Special entitled "Torn Between Two Fathers" about a teenage girl who sues her natural father for the right to remain in her step-family's home following the accidental death of her natural mother. Pat played "Donna", the current wife of the teenager's natural father.
Benatar sings the traditional lullaby "Tell Me Why" for Disney For Our Children: To Benefit the Pediatrics AIDS Foundation (1991)
Benatar appears on "Yakety Yak- Take It Back", a Public Service Announcement produced by the Take It Back Foundation in 1991. The music video features several celebrities in an updated version of "Yakety Yak" retooled with a message about recycling. The music video premiered on MTV on April 10, 1991 (National Recycling Day), appeared as a trailer at AMC movie theaters, and was distributed on VHS and CD. It was later shown occasionally on Sesame Street during the 1990s, though it does not feature any Sesame Street characters.
Benatar performed an English-language version of "L'effet que tu me fais" (The Effect You Have on Me) for the Tribute to Édith Piaf (1993).
Benatar contributed a cover of the Fontella Bass hit "Rescue Me" to the 1994 Speed soundtrack.
The soundtrack to Disney's 2000 film An Extremely Goofy Movie features "Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades" by Benatar.
"Love Is a Battlefield" was featured twice on South Park, the first being the Season 2 episode "Ike's Wee Wee", but most notably in the episode "Red Man's Greed".
In 2003, "Love Is a Battlefield" was featured in the movie 13 Going on 30.
In 2003, Konami released a singing video game called "Karaoke Revolution" that featured the cover version of Benatar's song "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" as a part of the song list line-ups.
Benatar has made numerous TV appearances, mostly as herself. She appeared with her husband in the Charmed episode "Lucky Charmed" on which "Heartbreaker" was used and in an episode of Dharma & Greg as herself singing "We've Only Just Begun" at an impromptu wedding in an airport. In 2001, she also appeared as fictional rock star Anna Raines in the CBS TV drama Family Law with Dixie Carter and Christopher McDonald.
Benatar appeared in an episode of the short lived sitcom That '80s Show as herself as an old rival of the character Margaret. Her "Love Is a Battlefield" video appeared on an earlier episode of the show.
On February 14-15 2008 Benatar and husband appeared as themselves on The Young and the Restless performing at the Indigo Club.
"Love Is a Battlefield" was featured in Christian Dior Ready to Wear Fall/Winter 2006 by John Galliano.
In 2006, Benatar and her music were featured on "CMT Crossroads." The show was produced by and is shown on Country Music Television (CMT). The premise of the show is to feature a country artist with an artist from a different genre who was an influence. Benatar shared the stage with country artist, Martina McBride. McBride sang Benatar's hits while Benatar sang McBride's hits. The show includes interviews of both women.
In 2007-2008 Benatar's single "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" was put into the songlist for Guitar Hero 3 in the first tier of songs, also in Guitar Hero On Tour,and is available as a downloadable song in the video game Rock Band. Her song "Heartbreaker" is a playable song in the 2008 video game followup Guitar Hero: World Tour as well as also being downloadable content on Rock Band.
"Shadows of the Night" was covered in 2008 by Ashley Tisdale for the television movie Picture This.
"Hit Me with Your Best Shot" was covered by one of Charlize Theron's friends in the 2005 motion picture North Country.
The original master recording of the song "Love Is a Battlefield" was featured in Konami's rebooted version of their singing video game "Karaoke Revolution".
In 2010, "We Belong" was covered by cast members Kristen Alderson, Brittany Underwood, Kelley Missal, and Meghann Fahy on One Life to Live during its "Starr X'd Lovers" musical episodes.

Advertising

In 2006, the song "We Belong" was part of a $20 million dollar ad campaign for Sheraton hotels,^[14] although the version used in the commercial was not Benatar's. Her version of the song is featured in the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Adam McKay.

Though she had earlier expressed dismay for rock stars endorsing products (including onetime cohort Debbie Harry, who had developed her modeling career simultaneously to her rock career), Benatar herself has now become a commercial spokeswoman for the Energizer company, and is currently being featured in an ad for Candies Vintage shoes for Kohl's department store. In 2007, her song "Passion" could be downloaded free from the official Jell-O web site.