![]() ![]() ![]()
Speaking of “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll,” nowhere else in 1981 was there to be found a rock and roll anthem so infectiously catchy that it bridged the gap between ’70s Glam and Punk Rock in a way that it even fit in with the rougher shades of New Wave and Power Pop. Defnitely far better than that travesty of a take Britney Spears laid an egg with years later. So yeah, Joan and company rocked some cool original tunes on I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll but holy toledo, did they also rock the crap outa some nifty covers including, but not limited to, the title track. Again think Van Halen – I think most of us will agree that their takes on The Kinks‘ “You Really Got Me” and the often covered “You’re No Good” take the cake over the rest. Point is, it’s not always how cool the tunes are that make the record but how cool the artist makes the tunes on the thing. The Beatles and Rolling Stones had tons of covers on their early albums and yeah, on that subject, I can go on for days and days. Now before I go into why this record is so cool, let me just mention that one of the biggest arguments to the contrary is that half the songs are covers and while that’s true, of the nine actual songs on Van Halen‘s Diver Down, over half are covers. #JOAN JETT I LOVE ROCK N ROLL FULL#Eventually I was going to take advantage of that program to grab my first full listens of first releases by Aldo Nova and Asia but my first chance to shove in a cassette and tape an album was that weekend and it was Jett‘s killer second solo release, I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll. #JOAN JETT I LOVE ROCK N ROLL FREE#To make things even cooler, the deejay reminded listeners that the album the tune came from was going to be played commercial free from start to finish that weekend at midnight which was something that KLS did on the regular. Now at the time, I wasn’t yet familiar with the entire Runaways catalog but I knew Joan‘s stuff and I had heard some tracks from her first solo album but man, when I heard her take on Arrows‘ tune “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll”, I was bowled over. Yeah, I used to have the Arrows version on 45 but this was tougher and boy was I shocked when the deejay said it was Joan Jett and her new band The Blackhearts. This song I’d heard before but only different yet in a voice I recognized. So one night I’m laying on my temporary cot staring up into the darkness while my ears are blasted with the headphone-projected sounds of KLS and suddenly, there it was. Talk about direct marketing, right? But what does this have to do with this record? Well let me tell you. #JOAN JETT I LOVE ROCK N ROLL TV#However, just like LaRusso found that silver lining in karate, I struck gold with the one thing I never had back in Germany – a rock and roll radio station which I discovered when a commercial for the station came on TV while my little nephew was watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood. OK maybe not that bad but for a shaggy-haired, no-shirt tuckin’ rock and roll kid, 1981 Marietta was not really the place to be. ![]() Think Danny LaRusso moving from Jersey to sunny Reseda and surrounded by big bad Johnny Lawrence and his crew. If you have ever caught my reviews of stuff from the early ’80s, then you know that most of it figures in medicinally as this sort of saving grace soundtrack to this huge transition in my life but instead of bleeding you dry with the deets again, let’s just say I bounced from a musically flexible military dependent life to landing in the middle of preppie-ville Atlanta, GA late 1981. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |