LOVE’S LABOR LOST
Pat Benatar grows up. Well, we all do, so they say (those who make it, anyway), but once you get there, you realize that nobody is “grown up” in the same way. And if you’re already successful, you can sometimes grow up the way you want to. Which is sort of what’s happening here.
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LOVE’S LABOR LOST
PAT BENATAR Tropico (Chrysalis)
Michael Davis
Pat Benatar grows up. Well, we all do, so they say (those who make it, anyway), but once you get there, you realize that nobody is “grown up” in the same way. And if you’re already successful, you can sometimes grow up the way you want to. Which is sort of what’s happening here. Pat Benatar’s unquestionable success with an aggressive rock role has allowed her and the band to simultaneously relax and expand musically; this is the LP-after-thelive-album, after all, and growth is considered socially acceptable at this point, right?
But there’s another kind of growth that’s crucial to Tropico and that’s the baby growing inside Pat—and Benatar is, naturally enough, changing her life in certain ways to deal with him/her. One way is that, on this album, there is no direct anger expressed anywhere; Benatar has cast aside her feisty firecat persona and displays here instead a wider range of emotional expressions. I dunno if it’s ’cause she’s happy being pregnant or she doesn’t want to subject her developing offspring to the internal turmoil that accompanies being pissed off or what, but her choice effectively sets her free from her own cliches. Combined with guitarist/bandleader/co-producer/hubby Neil Geraldo’s decision to give up the sustained power chord for Lent/for a challenge/for whatever, it really sets the band off in new directions.
Well, to a degree. The move actually began with “Lipstick Lies” and “Love Is A Battlefield,” the studio tracks tacked onto the end of the live album, and the standards set by those two tunes are easily met by the first and last songs here. The first time I heard “Diamond Fields,” I thought, “Aha! Blondie does ‘Panic In Detroit,’ ” but a few more spins revealed its own distinctive nature: a musically muscular Mulholland Drive fantasy of fame and fortune. The consequences of same are dealt with in more detail on “Takin’ It Back,” one of the most evenhanded takes on stardumb I’ve ever come across: “It was faceless people/ln jackets and ties/Who thought of you/When they made love to their wives/Somehow, it wasn’t what you had in mind.”
The rest of Tropico is definitely a mixed bag. “We Belong,” for instance, is structured like a typical anthem—but the band’s arrangement tries to hide that fact. Neil stresses his acoustic strums over his electric while Myron Grombacher comes up with a wall of white noise out of his drums and devices which takes up a truly awesome amount of the mix. The whole thing sounds a little forced to me, but it’s already a Top Ten single as I write this. (Oh well, what do I know or care about hits anyway; for years, my fave Benatar tune was "My Clone Sleeps Alone.”) Incidentally, the other song to come from outside the group, “Temporary Heroes,” is given a similar treatment and may be the LP’s second hit. Then there are the genre pieces. “Ooh Ooh Song” comes off like a halfsister to Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” while the “The Outlaw Blues” could almost be the Outlaws, if there were more guitars.
Interestingly, the guitar playing is the weakest aspect of Tropico. Neil Geraldo’s pseudo-Spanish lines are effective on “Painted Desert,” but his solo on “Love InThe Ice Age” sounds like a session man’s nod (off) to Stevie Ray Vaughan and his toothless blues licks rob "A Crazy World Like This” of its momentum. If arranger Geraldo is too busy to care much about his guitar work and if producer Geraldo is satisfied with these results, then a new pair of ears or hands are gonna be necessary for the music to maintain a healthy level of intensity.
Then again, many people expect that after the little one arrives, the Geraldos will become mellow, cozy and boring. I ain’t so sure. With parents like these, the possibility definitely exists that the kid could be a righteous howler with a will of his/her own. And if the baby regularly interrupts the allimportant nuptial relations with demands for satisfaction of its own nocturnal needs, the frustration could generate a whole new series of ticked-off tunes: “Beech-Nut* Lies,” “Messmaker,” and "Hell Is For Parents.” So second-guessing the future at this point seems pointless; for now, this album feels more like a transition than the first signal of a decline.
