The New York Times Catches Up With Pat Benatar

LINKcat status:  1 copy, 14 holds

LINKcat status:  3 copies, 12 holds

Link to June 20 New York Times article, "Saving Her Best Shot for the Bullies".

Excerpt:  Her tomboy adolescence equipped her for a career spent taking up arms against music industry executives, those “bean counters and suits,” she likes to say, who plagued her for years with demands to step up her schedule, never mind she was often worn to a nub.

The bullying by her handlers at Chrysalis, her record label for 11 years, riled her — but it drove her, too. “It made me crazier and crazier every day,” she said. “It got so intense. But as it turns out, that was exactly what I needed.”

It instilled in her the sexy ferocity that fueled her early performances, and is captured in “Between a Heart and a Rock Place” (HarperCollins), her new memoir — and indictment — of the music scene of the late ’70s and ’80s. Much of that fury will likely be unleashed in a series of concerts across the country this summer. It also is what spawned her look, a compelling hybrid of tomboy and tart that has become the stylistic template for legions of young women studying Ms. Benatar’s videos on YouTube.

In the ’70s and ’80s, Ms. Benatar was a force, flaunting a raffishly improvised wardrobe of waist-cinched leotards and slick spandex tights. Assembled without a stylist’s ministrations, that look today is mainstream — American Apparel’s stock in trade.