Recorded in the waning months of the ’70s and the opening months of the ’80s, when the recently recovered Runaway was just 21, Bad Reputation might be rock history's most brazen depiction of a girl crashing the boys'toga party. It's almost half cover versions, but the selections are anything but random: Sam the Sham's tequila-chugging “Wooly Bully,” the Isleys'only-just-Animal Housed “Shout,” “Too Bad On Your Birthday” from ’70s biker-boogie blam-de-lammers Ram Jam, two male-bonding fist-pumpers from Gary Glitter — plus, on this newest version of an album that's been repeatedly reconfigured since its self-titled European import days, a song from the Who, and Tommy James'frat classic “Hanky Panky.” And before you get to any of those, just to make sure guys don't get the wrong idea, Joan nails Lesley Gore's proto-feminist 1963 “You Don't Own Me.”

But before even that, batting leadoff, there's “Bad Reputation” itself: the toughest shout Joan has ever sung, and one of the rock's all-time great refusals to atone for past sins. Interestingly, the album's other non-covers tend more toward power-balladeering than you might remember, though “Don't Abuse Me,” for one, is hard and fast — and has the album's deadliest guitar solo, from Sex Pistol Steve… read more »