Pat Benatar — “Ooh Ooh Song”

Entered Top 40:  February 9, 1985
3 weeks 
Peaked at: 36

After half a decade of stadium rock and power ballads, Pat Benatar tried a few different things on 1984’s Tropico. The lead single, “We Belong,” was in a mostly-familiar lane, and peaked at #5 (tying “Love is a Battlefield,” cowritten by our old B5 pal Holly Knight, as Benatar’s highest-charting single), but elsewhere on the album she messes around with the new-wave sounds she’d been competing with. The “Ooh Ooh Song” opens Side 2 of Tropico, and she comes in like she borrowed The Attractions from Elvis Costello circa This Year’s Model.

I mean, I think this is an agreeable-enough raveup, though dopey as a fencepost. But in 1984/85 I don’t know if it was winning any Benatar or post-punk/new wave fans over to the other sides. I looked at a bunch of more modern Tropico reviews online and a see lot of folks calling “Ooh Ooh Song” a low point.

And at this point we say so long to Pat Benatar; she’d drop her next album Seven The Hard Way in the summer, featuring “Invincible,” (#10) another Holly Knight co-composition and the big theme from The Legend of Billie Jean. Benatar and Neil Giraldo are still married and touring; they spent a lot of 2023 opening for Pink. A friend went and said she’s still got it.

The B-side of the “Ooh Ooh Song” was…a version in Spanish! Toni Basil also did this with a 12″ single of “Mickey.” Anyway, please enjoy “La Cancion Ooh Ooh.”