That one song: I Love Rock 'N Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

Really, I just love Joan Jett

A few years ago, Vulture posted a ranking of all the artists who have been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

I’m not going to link to it because I don’t want to give it air, but it was exactly what you would expect and fear it to be—a click-bait-styled hipster bitch sesh (error riddled, too) that included many dubious assertions.

For example, the author claimed Bill Withers was not a person of ‘particular substance.’

Yes, really.

As ridiculous as that is to fathom, there was another claim that I found particularly risible.

“There are several female artists who plainly shouldn’t be in the hall. Joan Jett and Pat Benatar among them…”

But that’s okay, the author assures us, because there are lots of unqualified male artists there, too.

As if that wasn’t enough, in the paltry entry dedicated to assessing Jett’s (and the Blackhearts’) unworthiness (she presently ranks #219 out of 255 artists; the list is updated annually), the author dismisses her albums as better than ‘not listenable.’

Two things came to mind when I read this.

One, I believe Jett has at least four or five exceptional albums and several better-than-average ones, with her 1983 release Album being one of the best rock albums of all time.

Two, the author’s tone is emblematic of the general attitude among male rock critics and music fans toward Jett and other women in rock.

Case in point, when Courtney Love wrote her op-ed “Why are women so marginalized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” I recall members of the Hoffman Forums, a place where people start endless threads about the Beatles and music they don’t like, arguing with vigor that women just didn’t like to play rock and roll.

Never mind that Ace in the UK has issued several compilations going back to the 60s and 50s that prove otherwise.

No, none of the artists on those comps became icons like The Beatles.

The music industry wasn’t interested in them.

But imagine what might have happened had the industry been more inclusionary or supportive.

Instead, women who formed rock and roll bands faced antipathy at best and hostility at worst.

And they still do.

So it was an emotional moment for me when Jett was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

In fact, when the announcement was made, I wondered why it had taken so long.

Just kidding.

It was sexism.

It was always sexism.

Jett encountered that when she was gifted her first guitar at the age of 13.

In an interview, she recalled her first lesson when she asked the instructor to teacher her how to play rock and roll.

Girls, he told her, don’t do that.

That was Jett’s last lesson.

She bought a book and spent hours learning to play by ear from records by Black Sabbath and Deep Purple.

That dedication tells you everything you need to know about how much Jett loves rock and roll.

Even her last name, which she chose when her parents divorced, was a calculated move.

Jett was dressing for the career she wanted, boldly envisioning a place for herself in an industry where heroes, specifically women who played hard rock, were hard to find in the early 1970s.

There was her idol, Suzi Quatro, but she had decamped to the UK, where she enjoyed several hit singles.

There was Fanny, but the music press and industry didn’t really seem to take them seriously despite how ferociously good they were.

There were artists like Genya Ravan and Bonnie Raitt, but they weren’t hard rock, and they certainly weren’t scoring adoring Rolling Stone profiles.

In fact the women who were, like Joni Mitchell, were also subject to outrageous sexism, like Rolling Stone slut shaming her as Old Lady of the Year.

That Jett pursued her passion in the face of all that speaks to her determination, but I argue more than that it speaks to her talent.

Remember, she co-wrote Cherry Bomb, a generational anthem that not only straddled punk, glam, and metal in ways her peers couldn’t, but also turned on a wicked double entendre.

It set the template for everything that followed, from the radio friendly rock records of the 80s to her Riot Grrl-inspired 90s work like Pure and Simple which sounded like a natural extension of her CV and not a crass cash in.

If I have to pick one song that makes the case for why I love her, it’s I Love Rock ‘N Roll, which was my introduction to her.

It is a song that hits like pure molten lava—so big, so booming, that it overwhelmed everything from the AM airwaves to my grotty little stereo.

Nothing could quite capture its energy or contain it.

Not even me when I heard it.

At that time, I had only basic exposure to hard rock via AC/DC, Van Halen, and Iron Maiden.

But even so, I knew it was very, very masculine.

So was I Love Rock ‘N Roll, at least originally.

The song was written by Alan Merrill—son of jazz singer Helen Merrill—as a cheeky riposte to the Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock & Roll (but I Like it).

Merrill thought Mick Jagger sounded apologetic for his day job (or night job, I guess), given how he was schmoozing with aristocracy, and crafted a story about a couple of kids bonding at the disco over a song on the record machine.

That song being I Love Rock ‘N Roll.

Merrill was also inspired by his producer and label boss, Mickie Most, who asked him to come up with something epic, like Summertime Blues.

The first version was recorded with Most by Merrill’s band, The Arrows, a transatlantic trio consisting of him, Jake Hooker (who gained a co-write credit because Merrill owed him money), and Paul Varley, who scored a few UK hits.

It wound up as a B-side until Mickie Most’s wife suggested it would be a great A-side.

But for a variety of reasons, it didn’t chart.

It’s good, but it is missing that certain something, although there are folks on YouTube who think it is the better version.

Although it wasn’t a hit, the song was featured on the band’s TV show, Arrows, which is how Jett learned about it during The Runaways’ UK tour in ‘76.

She suggested that the band record it, but they weren’t interested.

But Jett’s belief in the song was such that, when the band ended in 1979, she cut the song as a solo artist with the help of Paul Cook and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.

Once again, the song went out into the world as a B-side in the UK.

It’s an interesting take, but it is rough around the edges and doesn’t get at the song’s potential.

That might have been the end of the story there for the song, and for Jett, because she couldn’t get signed to a US label.

By her count, 23 passed on her 1980 self-titled debut, a DIY project made possible thanks to her mentor, collaborator, and manager Kenny Laguna, who put up his daughter’s college fund and called in favors to make it happen.

It should be noted that this album features Bad Reputation, a delightfully snotty statement of purpose which is almost as well known and beloved today as I Love Rock ‘N Roll.

Undeterred, Jett and Laguna sold the album at her live shows and finally gained enough traction that the album was picked up by Boardwalk Records, a short-lived label started by industry legend Neil Bogart, whose ear for talent was only eclipsed by the amount of money he was willing to spend to make a hit happen.

For the follow-up album, Jett went back to I Love Rock ‘N Roll, which became the title track, opener, and first single.

And this time, it was a hit.

A megahit.

That pounding beat that opens the song?

That’s essentially Jett banging on the door of the boys club, not in hopes that someone will let her in, but with the intention of knocking it down, storming the place, and taking no prisoners.

Where previous versions had been plodding or shambolic, this version was precision tooled, with every boom-boom-clap inflicting significant collateral damage on the pop charts, because nothing else sounded like it.

Part of that is its sheer sonority, which harkened back to glam and the kind of pomp rock that Queen scored hits with, specifically We Will Rock You.

But a big part of that is Jett.

Her voice cut through the airwaves like a jagged edge, making ample space for her to make you reconsider how rock sounds and who can make it.

Jett may not have written I Love Rock n Roll, but she essentially rewrites it, taking bog-standard tropes about a boy meeting a girl and flipping the gender script on them.

In fact, it sounds more thrilling to hear her claim ‘he was with me, yeah me’ than Merrill because it subverts stereotypes by having her assert possession.

I would love to say that it was an awakening for me, but it wasn’t, at least not in a profoundly obvious way.

But Jett’s androgynous appearance in my world did pip that of artists like the Culture Club, showing me how fluid you could be in your expression such that I think it got filed away as a subject for further research.

Honestly, I think I may have been even more fascinated by the fact that she did not swap genders when she covered Crimson and Clover, but these are small threads in a long journey of self-awareness and identity.

Still, I Love Rock n Roll made Jett an instant icon for me, a unique artist who clearly had a strong ethos and a general disinclination to play by anyone’s rules but her own.

I mean, for the follow-up album, Album, she included a cover of The Rolling Stones’ infamous Star, Star on the cassette version that caused friction with retailers and likely helped to kill her momentum.

But that unwillingness to play by the rules made for a more interesting career trajectory that saw her collaborating with everyone from Paul Westerberg to Jim Vallance and Kathleen Hanna (on the same song, no less).

She never sold out.

And she never chased trends.

How many of her peers and heroes can you say that of?

Very few.

But then few love rock and roll the way Jett does.

And just as few have made records as indelible and as illustrative of the true span and power of the genre as she has.

Even if some critic thinks otherwise.