For the second day in a row a music review. If I’m moving too fast for you there is no need to panic. Just scroll down a bit further and you can read them both!
Disc 1762 is…Get Nervous
Artist: Pat Benatar
Year of Release: 1982
What’s up with the Cover? Even in a padded cell and straitjacket Pat always looks sexy and stylish.
Perhaps this is why they made the mistake of letting her keep her high-heeled boots. I imagine she will later use these to brain an orderly through the eye (as if that loose necked jacket was going to hold her), pick the lock of the cell door with the pin holding that button to her top, and flee - slowly - into the shadows of the night.
Slowly on account of the high heeled boots which, as it turns out, are a mixed blessing when making a break for it.
How I Came To Know It: I grew up with Pat Benatar and knew this record as a kid. Finding it on CD years later proved much more difficult. And for years my efforts bore no fruit.
Thank goodness for Japanese imports! Japan is still full of CD sales and even has Tower Records stores. As a result the liner notes of this disc are half in Japanese, but the song lyrics are printed in English, which is the content I most wanted to read anyway.
One day we will all rediscover the enduring love of the compact disc but until then a heartfelt thank you to Japan for keeping the dream alive.
How It Stacks Up: I now have five Pat Benatar albums. Of those five, “Get Nervous” comes in at #4.
Ratings: 2 stars
While the Japanese rescued “Get Nervous” from CD purgatory, they were not able to do anything about the quality of the recording. I’m not sure if it is just that the album isn’t designed for CD or it is just that 1982 was unkind to production generally but I spent a lot of time on this record yearning for the bottom end of the sound to be…brawnier. This did not occur.
Despite this overarching irritant, “Get Nervous” has plenty of good moments, starting with the opening track, “Shadows of the Night”. This was the record’s biggest hit and also the album’s best song. The main reason for this is the wise decision to feature Benatar’s voice in all its raunchy rock n’ roll glory. The arrangement has her singing the hook a capella before the tune even launches, with the band soon filling in behind her like a rock opera. I did wish it had a bit more oomph (see production note earlier) but since this song’s best moments are when Benatar is soaring over the melody, the flaw is less noticeable.
Around this time in my youth I used to amuse myself by taking songs I liked and writing alternative lyrics about other things I liked. For this song, I wrote a D&D adventure called “Running with the Shadows and the Wights”. It was fun in 1982 and when the song is playing I can still hear the alternate lyrics “shadowing” in the background. I’ll spare you the rest – you’re welcome.
My other favourite is “Little Too Late” which is Benatar reprising her role of woman scorned, where she tells off some third party who has wronged her. She is really good at this kind of song and while “Heartbreaker” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” are better examples, “Little Too Late” holds up well after many years.
“Get Nervous” also has a bit of a beat-forward style to many songs that hints at New Wave. Benatar is not New Wave but it is fair to say that she lightly flirts with the ideas, at least in terms of the staccato jump that style employs. The strongest example is “Looking for a Stranger” which hops about through the verses with a New Wave sensibility before Benatar collapses back into sultry rock and roll for the chorus.
On “Anxiety (Get Nervous)” she employs that same rapid heartbeat sound, but without a letdown in the chorus. The song sounds “futuristic” in that early eighties sci fi kind of way that would work well as the theme of a chase scene on an episode of Buck Rogers.
While there aren’t a lot of obvious stand-out hits on “Get Nervous” and it is held back by its production, the record has no serious clangers and Benatar’s vocals power every song into something better than it might otherwise be. The tints and splashes of New Wave are a nice touch and show that she was not afraid to explore new sounds as her career progressed.
While I only gave this record two stars, it was a positive two stars, and it will be staying in the collection.
Best tracks: Shadows of the Night, Anxiety (Get Nervous), Little Too Late
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