10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs

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Our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list features songs we feel have floated under the radar over the years in Pat Benatar’s catalog. Pat Benatar is one of the most successful rock and roll artists of all time. Born in 1953, she first hit the scene in 1979 with her debut album In the Heat of the Night. This album blew a lot of our minds, driven by the hit single “Heartbreaker.” She wasn’t the first female rocker, far from it, but she was definitely one of the first with an attitude that came out in full blast in her vocal performances. In the next couple of years, Pat Benatar would have a huge collection of hits with songs like “Shadows of the Night,” “Precious Time,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “Fire and Ice,” “Love Is a Battlefield,” and more. Fans just bought up her first handful of albums like crazy. She was one of the biggest stars of the 1980s.

However, in the 1990s, her star faded a bit in terms of record sales. None of the albums she released in the 1990s, like True Love, Gravity’s Rainbow, or Innamorata, did really well on the charts. The hits had dried up, music changed, grunge took over, and Pat Benatar was no longer as big as she was in the ’80s. Still, a loyal fan base has never wavered, and Benatar and Neil Giraldo have continued performing together. They were inducted together into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. Go, released in 2003, remains Benatar’s most recent studio album, although she and Giraldo have released occasional new recordings since then, including the 2020 single “Together.” Even though her ’90s output didn’t do well or wasn’t as popular, those records still have great tracks we want to showcase on this top 10 underrated Benatar songs list. We will also include a few from the ’80s that we think did not get enough love.

# 10 – “Payin’ the Cost to Be the Boss” – True Love

We open up our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list with “Payin’ the Cost to Be the Boss.” This song appeared on Pat Benatar’s True Love album, which was released in 1991. This album was a shock to Pat Benatar fans; no one was expecting her to release a swinging jump blues album. You have to hand it to her for having the courage to do this. While the album wasn’t overwhelmingly accepted, it did break into the top 40 on the US Billboard 200 chart. If you were one of the fans who actually bought the album, you were probably pretty happy with it; it’s a great rocking record.

The album featured, of course, her husband Neil Giraldo on guitars, Charles Giordano on piano, Chuck Domanico on bass, and Myron Grombacher on drums. The legendary Lenny Castro also played percussion, and the album included a complete horn section that consisted of Greg Piccolo, Doug James, Rick Lataille, Carl Querfurth, Bob Enos, and John Rossi. The song “Payin’ the Cost to Be the Boss” was written by B.B. King and was released as the second single from the album.

# 9 – “No You Don’t” – In the Heat of the Night

Continuing with our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list, we go all the way back to Pat Benatar’s debut album. The song “No You Don’t” was kind of buried on side two as the next-to-last song on the record. The song was written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who wrote so many hits in the 1970s. The song was originally recorded by Sweet. Several singles were released from Pat Benatar’s debut album, but “No You Don’t” was not one of them.

# 8 – “Somebody’s Baby” – Gravity’s Rainbow

It’s really sad that brilliant songs like this have kind of gotten lost in Pat Benatar’s catalog. Gravity’s Rainbow was a great Pat Benatar album. It was her ninth studio release. The problem was that it was released in 1993, when Nirvana had turned the musical world upside down. In ’93, everyone was listening to bands from Seattle; that was the big thing, and so music like this became overshadowed. This rocking mid-tempo tune was written by Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo. The Gravity’s Rainbow album contained 12 brand new original songs; there were no covers on this record.

# 7 – “Strawberry Wine” – Innamorata

If you haven’t heard this one, make sure you kick off your shoes and stop to take a listen. “Strawberry Wine” is a very cool mid-tempo acoustic-style Pat Benatar song that is sort of an outlier in her catalog. She didn’t often record music like this. It’s very organic sounding with a great melody, a smooth groove, and some very cool lyrics. By 1997, Pat and Neil were getting a little older and somewhat more reflective in their songwriting. The song “Strawberry Wine” was released on Pat Benatar’s Innamorata album, which came out in 1997. The album featured a guest appearance by the late T. Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs, who played organ.

# 6 – “Christmas In America” – Go

This is a really special song in Pat Benatar’s catalog. “Christmas in America” was originally released in 2001 as a charity single in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It later appeared as an unlisted hidden bonus track on Pat Benatar’s Go album, which was issued in 2003. It doesn’t get any more special than that—two loving people giving back to their country and to the world, hoping for peace.

# 5 – “Never Wanna Leave You” – Crimes of Passion

At the halfway point on our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list is a song that was definitely overshadowed and sandwiched between four of the biggest hits of her career on the same album side. Pat Benatar’s second album, Crimes of Passion, would become the biggest-selling album of her career, eventually earning quadruple-platinum certification in the United States.

The album was fueled by the massive hit singles “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “You Better Run,” and “Treat Me Right.” On the album’s first side, she opened with “Treat Me Right,” followed by “You Better Run,” with “Never Wanna Leave You” sandwiched just before “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and “Hell Is for Children.” How’s that for an album side? “Never Wanna Leave You” is just a very cool mid-tempo groove that features a sneering, slick vocal and a melody line that was always captivating but very much got lost among all the big-time hits on this record.

# 4 – “Le Bel Age” – Seven the Hard Way

The song “Le Bel Age” was released on Pat Benatar’s sixth studio album, Seven the Hard Way. The album was released in 1985, and kind of got overlooked in her catalog of popular singles. One reason this song may have been overshadowed is that the video released to promote it starred Richard Belzer in a black-and-white film noir production that often interrupted the song with dialogue. While the video was interesting and Pat Benatar looked stunning, Belzer’s dialogue really detracted from the song. It was pretty shocking to see this, and it’s one of the reasons why we didn’t include that video to showcase the song, instead opting to use just the audio in our recording.

# 3 – “Fight It Out” – Get Nervous

Moving along on our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list, we present another forgotten song. The track “Fight It Out” was released on Pat Benatar’s Get Nervous album. This was Benatar’s fourth studio album, released in 1982. It’s amazing how she released four albums in a three-year period, all of them great. This is probably one reason songs like this have been overlooked. Billy Steinberg and Neil Giraldo wrote the song. It’s a slow-moving tune, but Pat Benatar’s vocal performance is just breathtaking.

# 2 – “Cool Zero” – Wide Awake in Dreamland

Just off the top spot on our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list is the hard-driving song “Cool Zero.” How was this one ever overlooked? Neil Giraldo’s guitar is on fire right from the start on this very cool track. The Wide Awake in Dreamland album was fueled by the massive hit single “All Fired Up,” which was a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for Pat Benatar. The album itself broke into the top 30 on the Billboard 200. This cranking song “Cool Zero” was released as the opening track on side two of the record. Wide Awake in Dreamland was released in 1988 and would become her last rock and roll album of the decade, as the next record Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo released was True Love, a blues album.

# 1 – “Go” – Go

We close out our 10 Most Underrated Pat Benatar Songs list with the song entitled “Go.” This was the title track to Pat Benatar’s most recent studio album. By 2026, it had been 23 years since Go was released. I’m not sure why Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo haven’t released another full studio album; I guess we would just have to ask them. They have released occasional new music since Go, including the single “Together” in 2020, but it would be fantastic if they released a new album. You can’t blame artists anymore for not releasing new albums because nobody buys anything. A lot of work goes into releasing new music—writing songs, recording songs, producing songs, and distributing songs—all of which cost a lot of time and money.

It’s understandable why people wouldn’t want to do it if they weren’t going to make any money on it; they could actually lose a lot of money. I guess it just comes down to an artistic choice. Nonetheless, we picked the song “Go” because it’s just a fabulous song that showcases a bit of an updated sound for the band, although “updated” is also a word that may not be the best choice because it was 23 years ago. Still, if you haven’t heard this one, it’s definitely worth a listen. I always thought this was a great record and wondered why it just never did really that well.