Overview
"Love Is a Battlefield" is a song by American singer Pat Benatar, recorded and released on September 12, 1983, as a single from Benatar's live album Live from Earth (1983), though the song itself was a studio recording. It was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. The song was ranked at number 30 in VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s. "Love Is a Battlefield" went on to sell over a million records.
Background and composition
Knight and Chapman wrote this song for Benatar initially as a mid tempo song. After some exploration with drum machines and the band, producer Neil Giraldo decided to make it an uptempo song. The single was Benatar's second US million-seller and is tied with "We Belong" as her highest-charting single in the United States. It topped Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for four weeks and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983.
It reached number one on the Australian singles chart in February 1984 and remained there for five weeks, becoming the 11th biggest-selling single of the year. In the Netherlands, the song topped the charts for four weeks; it reached number two on the 1984 year-end chart. The song was re-released in the United Kingdom in March 1985 and reached number 17. It was awarded a gold certification in Canada as well.
The single was unlike most of Benatar's previous work, as it featured an electronic dance element, but guitars and drums were still present. In 1984, the song won Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
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