Die By Mars

Overall Live Album Score: *** 1/2

It's an interesting experience sitting here listening to the live portion of this Pat Benatar live album. She puts on an entirely decent show (according to this) and this depicts this arena rock diva at the height of her popularity. As you'd expect, she goes through the usual laundry list of her big hits here. Also, as you'd expect, Benatar sings on this album! And her husband delivers a bunch of nice, guitar licks.

What probably surprises me most about the album is that it isn't bad. I was expecting something more obnoxious ...... In fact, this concert doesn't even sound particularly dated. Sure, there's an '80s synth here and there, but I'd imagine this could have been performed in any decade! What we get is a mightily tasteful concert. Plus, anyone who doesn't care for all that studio polish in her studio albums might enjoy the fact these songs are considerably rougher and sloppier. That said, anyone who doesn't like Pat Benatar the studio artist probably is hesitant about buying Pat Benatar the live musician. And, I'm not going to do anything to convince you otherwise.

I can't help but think Pat Benatar fans might still be disappointed with this release. The one thing this album seems to lack (despite all the positives I outlined) is spirit. Sure, the music is poppy and fun, but the best thing about listening to Benatar's songs is her voice. She belts out everything, but her voice doesn't seem *quite* as fun. It's too drowned out in the instrumentals. (Case in point, "Hell is For Children" requires a very loud and very mean delivery of the chorus. Benatar is certainly giving it the effort and singing it 'right,' but I don't quite get that confrontational *growl* that would have sent shivers down my spine.) If her voice was more dominant in the mixing, I'm almost certain it would have prompted me to raise the live album rating to a 1-. Maybe this wasn't planned that well. But what do I know about making live albums? Even if changing the mixing was impossible, my impression of it remains the same.

Nonetheless, this is a fun live album, that I enjoyed very much. Despite the flaws, it's worth getting. Certainly, Benatar fans must own it. Luckily, the audience noise are kept in (I love hearing audience noise in live albums). Benatar even takes a few moments to talk to the audience (she talks verrrrrrry much like a rock star would ... she has a gruff growl in her yell).

I wrote all that without mentioning much of the playlist ... Everything I wrote applies to all the songs equally I guess. Here's the playlist: "Fire and Ice," "Lookin' For a Stranger," "I Want Out," "We Live for Love," "Hell is For Children," "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," "Promises in the Dark," "Heartbreaker," and ...................... Oh, and there are two new studio tracks! And for the love of all the swiss cheese in heaven, these are some of the best songs I've ever heard from Pat Benatar. They are among her finest, and I couldn't deny either of them a '10' rating. It's a shame she didn't put them on a studio album so they would go to contribute to one of her album scores! ... That's what Bat Penatar gets for not thinking about Don Ignacio's Music Reviews before releasing these albums.

Track Reviews

Just because there's two studio produced singles in here, I'll do the usual track reviews. Unfortunately, since this qualifies as a live album, they don't count toward this album score! At least the addition of these two Benatar classics makes this album that much more 'recommendable.'

Love is a Battlefield 10/10

A great song!!!!!!!! This is a very fun '80s single ... it's certainly a product from that decade, but it's pretty awesome. Not the AOR tough girl image of her previous albums, this is a nice straight pop song. The running bassline is pretty neat, and the melody is very catchy. Benatar (who, effectively, ends up proving that she is a better studio singer than a live one) delivers a solid and dynamic performance. The instrumentation is typical for '80s pop except it's pretty tasteful and even vaguely creative.

Lipstick Lies 10/10

The instrumentation is even more creative than the previous song. I just want to fall in love with that sax-synth that subtly but effectively imitates Motown music from the early '60s. ............. I almost don't believe this song!!!!!! It's very fun and tasteful ... the melody is even pretty catchy. At first glance this song threatens to be a little annoying. The thump-thump-thump drums seem monotonous (maybe you can consider that a minor flaw), but this song has a very intriguing orchestral quality that I can't say happens this effectively in '80s pop. It's delicious!!!!!!

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