The original rock goddess visits Salinas.

For kids who grew up with plastic bangles, spandex and Nintendo, Pat Benatar will always be remembered as the defiant, youthful figure holding her own against the world in the video “Love is a Battlefield.” Strolling across the dance floor in a lime-green dress, shredded pieces of fabric trailed behind her– with blue eye shadow emphasizing her eyes and deep-red lipstick coloring her scowl– Benatar looked into the camera and crooned, “We are young/ No one can tell us we’re wrong.”

She was a badass ahead of her time. Before it was en vogue for women to do so, Benatar embraced youth rebellion. Somehow she was sexy and rebellious without being commercial. Her cool was just cool.

That’s not to say that some people didn’t find Benatar a little… shocking in her early career. Writing for the Illinois Entertainer in 1979, M.J. Carroll noted that, onstage, Benatar transformed into a “vampish, sensual bitch everyone wants to love and to make love to… Benatar struts and purrs, prowls and growls, and shakes and screams her way across the stage, as if daring the audience to sit there unmoved.” In the same interview, Benatar brazenly proclaimed, “I want it all. I don’t want to be mediocre. I can’t stand being number two, it drives me nuts. All I have in my face right now is to be the best. I want to be number one.”

She didn’t have to wait long. As the ’80s dawned, pop culture embraced her sensual stage presence and 4.5-octave voice range. From 1980 to 1983, Benatar won four consecutive Grammy awards for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance with her songs “Crimes of Passion,” “Fire and Ice,” “Shadows of the Night,” and “Love is a Battlefield.” In her lengthy career, Benatar has earned six platinum records, four gold records, and 19 Top 40 hits while selling more than 35 million records worldwide.

Benatar’s catapult to success coincided with another important innovation of the 1980s: MTV. Her “You Better Run” was the second video aired when MTV launched in August 1981– and it may have been first were it not for the unavoidable irony of airing the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” first.

Benatar, now 55, continues to influence pop culture. Her “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was one of the only songs by a female vocalist included on the smash-hit video game “Guitar Hero III”– quite an accomplishment with an audience of pubescent boys. Musically, it may seem that Benatar has faded from the scene, but in reality, she has continued doing what she loves– her way. After an oppressive relationship with her record company ended in the late ’90s, she set out to produce her music independently. Following the example of modern-day rebel chick Ani Difranco, she formed her own record label (Bel Chiasso) with guitarist husband and tour mate Neil Giraldo. Benatar admits that she has sacrificed a wider audience for artistic autonomy with her most recent release Go (2003). As she told Believer Magazine in 2003, “It would be nice if I could get more people to hear [my records]. But if I have to sell my soul to the devil to do it, I won’t. I’ll take less of a population.”

Despite disenchantment with the recording industry, Benatar and Giraldo have toured virtually every year of the 2000s, illustrating Benatar’s passion for being onstage. As she told High Times back in 1982, “What we do every night is worth it no matter what anyone says. You get the money, you get the fame, you get the position, and all that bullshit that goes with it. The only thing that still matters is the 90 minutes that you’re onstage.”

Pat Benatar plays 8pm Friday, July 25, at Fox Theater, 241 S. Main St., Salinas. $60. 758-8459, www.vallitix.rdln.com.