“Love Is a Battlefield” is a song performed by Pat Benatar and written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. It was released in September 1983 as a single from Benatar’s live album Live from Earth, though the song itself was a studio recording. 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.

Holly Knight and Mike Chapman wrote this song for Pat Benatar initially as a ballad with a beautiful melody and moving chord changes. After some exploration with drum machines and the band, Neil Giraldo decided to make this an uptempo song. The single was Benatar’s second American 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 #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983.

It hit #1 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 remained on the charts for 4 weeks. It became #2 in the 1984 year-end chart. The song was re-released in the United Kingdom in March 1985 and reached #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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