When it was released in 1980, Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" impressed me by sounding both catchy and edgy for its time. It amuses me now to think that back then, it was relatively edgy and would only be heard regularly on St. Louis's two album rock stations, KSHE and KWK.
A few mornings ago, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" was played on three stations here, including one generally described as a hot adult contemporary station.
These days, so-called adult contemporary stations have room in their playlists for Pat Benatar, Prince, and even certain Aerosmith ballads. That would have been unthinkable in the '80s. Hearing "...Best Shot" so frequently decades later is a reminder that what was once edgy eventually becomes mainstream.
