Holly Knight

Songwriter Holly Knight helped shape the sound of Top 40 radio in the 1980s with her anthemic blend of muscle and melody. She herself cracked the Top 40 with 1980's "New Romance (It's a Mystery)" as a member of Spider before scoring Top Ten hits as co-writer of songs like Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" (1983), Tina Turner's "Better Be Good to Me" (1984), and Animotion's "Obsession" (1984). Another Top 40 appearance, this time as a member of Device, came in 1986 for "Hanging on a Heart Attack," and she issued an eponymous solo album in 1988. Knight continued to write and produce in the '90s and beyond, and her TV themes for Angel and Still Standing aired into the mid-2000s. Some of her '80s songs resurfaced in the late 2010s in Broadway's Tina: The Tina Turner Musical; "The Best" accompanied Joe Biden's presidential victory speech in 2020.