Like her debut solo collection before it, Joan Jett's first album with the Blackhearts opens and peaks with its great and famous title track — but where “Bad Reputation” took years to accrue its reputation in the public eye, “I Love Rock N'Roll” topped the US chart in its own time, and rocked harder than any other ’80s song to do so. It's also, some might be surprised to learn, a cover version — of a rarely heard 1975 B-side by UK glam rock footnotes the Arrows. But to say Joan made it her own is an understatement.

Joan sang it as a 23 year-old woman slavering over a 17 year-old boy standing by the record machine, and it's not the only time she flips gender tables here; she sings “Crimson and Clover” to a girl, just like Tommy James had, and then three songs later yells out a Diddleybeat original called “Be Straight” with a straight face. In general, the originals on I Love Rock N'Roll have catchier guitars and more humor than the originals on Bad Reputation: The beefalo riff in “(I'm Gonna) Run Away” is straight-up Bachman Turner Overdrive, and its title is its own punchline. Joan does… read more »