Top Ten Reasons Why Joan Jett Is Everything

Today, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts release their 10th studio album, Unvarnished. In celebration, I have penned this love letter to Joan for providing us with glorious inspiration since she first strummed a powerchord with the Runaways in 1975.

Top 10 Reasons Joan Jett Is Everything

10. The Runaways were many things – they were pioneers, they were jailbait, they were badass rock’n’roll icons, they were a really good excuse to watch a young, hot Lita Ford wear short silver shorts and slay some epic guitar solos. The thing is though, under all the glitter and eyeshadow and hairspray, those girls could play, and that was pretty unusual for a band of teenagers, regardless of gender. Teenage Joan helped write a number of the band’s songs, including “Take It Or Leave It,” “I Love Playin’ With Fire” and the band’s classic hit “Cherry Bomb.”

9. Joan Jett in the ’70s was a lithe, sneering rock goddess who oozed dangerous sexuality. Kristen Stewart was a lip-biting, blank-faced actress whose biggest claim to fame was starring as the wishy-washy perpetual victim Bella Swan in the Twilight movies. Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett in the movie The Runaways though? That was a thing. K-Stew studied Joan’s mannerisms, guitar stance and even her gravelly singing voice, and her performance was easily the sexiest, most emotive work she’s ever done. The movie was a vaguely hopeful work of fiction based loosely off Cherie Currie’s autobiography Neon Angels On The Road To Ruin, and it didn’t shy away from young Joan’s queerness, or the fact that she and Cherie hooked up a few times. When Dakota Fanning’s Cherie and K-Stew’s Joan stare into each others’ eyes in a hazy roller rink (?!) while “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” plays in the background, each of the film’s viewers’ lives became just a little bit better. Thank you, Joan Jett. Thank you, Kristen Stewart. Thank you for everything.

(If you’re interested in more information about the Runaways’ internal dramas and sexual exploits, I highly recommend a documentary called Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways.)

8. After the Runaways disbanded, Joan formed her own band and shopped her new music to labels. In 1981, she offered songs like “Bad Reputation,” “Crimson and Clover” and “I Love Rock and Roll” to 23 different labels, and was rejected by all of them. She and her writing partner Kenny Laguna formed Blackheart Records, printed 500 copies of “Bad Reputation” and sold them out of the back of Kenny’s Cadillac. They never looked back. Blackheart Records still exists today, and fosters incredible talent like the Eyeliners, the Dollyrots, the Vacancies, and Girl In A Coma.

7. Because she was out there at an early age, being badass and playing music that women didn’t normally play, Joan Jett influenced a lot of young girls to grow up to be musicians. On more than one occasion, she’s been referred to as the original riot grrrl or the godmother of punk. In 2004, the Blackhearts released Pure and Simple, which included songs Jett had cowritten with Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland and Donita Sparks of L7. All of those women cite Joan Jett as a major role model who helped inspire a powerful movement.

6. In 1993, singer Mia Zapata of the up-and-coming Seattle grunge band the Gits was raped and murdered. While the investigation was underway, Joan Jett collaborated with the band on a live album called Evil Stig (“Gits Live” backwards). The proceeds from this record helped fund the search for Mia’s murderer, and Joan even appeared on the Mia Zapata episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The band never lost hope, and Mia’s attacker was found, brought to trial and convicted in 2004.

5. Joan Jett plays a white Gibson Melody Maker, and has since 1977. Few musicians, female or otherwise, have ever looked so amazing holding a guitar. In 2008, Gibson released the Joan Jett Signature Melody Maker, which is no longer in production.

Joan-Jett-album-cover

4. Hey, have we talked about the video for “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” ???? She considers it “the dumbest thing [she’s] ever done” and Beavis and Butthead had a lot of strong feelings about it, but that’s OK because we do too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELpxApT8Kc

3. After decades of touring, recording and hard living, most rock stars start to look kind of like the Cryptkeeper, but Joan Jett still looks fresh-faced and amazing. She credits most of that to a healthy lifestyle and her vegetarian diet, and over the years she’s done a great deal of work with PETA and other animal rights organizations. In 2012, she received the Nanci Alexander Activist Award for her compassion and tireless activism.

PETAjoanjett300

2. For years, Joan’s refused to make an explicit statement about her sexuality, claiming that the truth is in her lyrics and that her personal life is personal. At the same time, she’s appeared on Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” tour, performed and recorded with trans* Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace, and covered Sweet’s ode to bisexuality “AC/DC” on her 2006 record Sinner. It was around that time that she was also heavily rumored to be dating the star of the “AC/DC” video, world-renowned attractive person Carmen Electra. Despite her refusal to directly acknowledge any speculation about her private life, Joan’s been a visible and supportive queer presence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtO2qkh6rF8

1. Some artists spend their entire careers reinventing themselves, changing their sound, their hair, their dance routines. Joan Jett (thankfully) is not one of those artists. She’s been in the business since 1975, and in that time she’s only gotten stronger. Her new record Unvarnished is out today, and it includes collaborations with Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! and Dave Grohl. Every song on it sounds like it could have been on Up Your Alley or I Love Rock and Roll – which is a huge compliment. Sometimes when older bands put out new records, their audience wince and wish they’d just shut up and play the hits, but Joan Jett keeps bringing it harder every album. Never stop, Joan. We love you.

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Stef

Stef Schwartz is a founding member and the self-appointed Vapid Fluff Editor at Autostraddle.com. She currently resides in New York City, where she spends her days writing songs nobody will ever hear and her nights telling much more successful musicians what to do. Follow her on twitter and/or instagram.

Stef has written 464 articles for us.

40 Comments

  1. THIS POST IS EVERYTHING

    Joan played a 4th of July concert near the tiny Texas suburb where I grew up a few summers back, and she was pure sex and omfg just ahhhhhh yeahhh ohhh yeahhhh

  2. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts are coming to play with Girl in a Coma opening for them in corpus soon!

  4. Joan Jett live. Saw her about 2 years ago and she still has it! Would love to go to another show.

  5. She was also Very Shane Today….. in the 80s before people knew who shane was. Black leather, white t-shirt, edgy asymmetrical haircut..

  7. Mercy, she is hot. In all the shallow ways, yes, but in all the other ways, too.

    I’m so glad you felt that way about The Runaways movie! I thought it was pretty bad and missed some of the greatest parts of the book, but Kristen Stewart really surprised me there. Have you heard Stewart and Jett ADORABLY doing the DVD commentary together? I was so angry I hadn’t been in that room.

    • the book was so intense and wasted absolutely no opportunity to call lita ford a fat bitch, which i thought was kind of amazing. the movie would have had to be 6 hours long to keep all the overdoses and abortions straight; i get why they glossed over so much. STILL. watch edgeplay if you haven’t; i haven’t watched it in a while but i feel like there’s a part where sandy west says joan was the best kisser of the group.

      • Oh, definitely impossible for The Runaways movie to really cover what the book covers, I just thought the film itself seemed almost TOO true to certain incidents in the book but without actually committing to a story structure, you know?

        I have definitely seen Edgeplay! Loved it. And I love how much more forthcoming Lita Ford is these days — she used to be pretty tight-lipped. (I have no idea if that should be taken as a pun or not.)

        Sandy West is such a sad story. In Edgeplay she seemed so hopeful that a reunion or at least some new future for her was possible. That was hard to watch.

        • yeah, sandy west seems like she would have been the most fun to hang out with. a real sweetheart.

          and yeah, it’s hard to separate the film’s fiction from reality, but it’s a really entertaining piece of work and i really loved it at face value. the funniest part prob is maeby funke as the completely silent bass player.

        • Oh god that’s right, I forgot that Alia Shawkat showed up to be a bass-playing mime! That was amazing.

          I was bummed that Lita only had like 8 lines since, besides Joan obviously, she was my early crush from that band.

        • When I saw Edgeplay Sandy already passed away. There was this part in the movie where Sandy asks for a cigarette break and in that moment the documentary became so super real and even more horrifying. I read Cherie’s book before, so I knew all the other things beforehand, but watching Sandy being super sweet and super vulnerable and smoking just broke my heart.

          Re Joan “best kisser” Jett: In an interview Cherie commented on Joanie as “best lover” that she ever had. Or something along those lines.

  8. I got a chance to meet Joan Jett after a screening of the Runaways movie Cherry Bomb, and she is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever encountered (which makes her all the more badass). I was awkward, 18, and stammering because I was so nervous to talk to her, and she just acted like it was no thing and kept talking to me for a good couple minutes. She told me her favorite band was Iggy and the Stooges, signed a Sesame Street Valentine card I happened to have on my person, and gave me a big hug. Joan Jett is the best.

  11. Joan Jett is seriously so amazing. And her support for and collaborations with Laura Jane Grace after she came out as trans* only made me love her so much more. Every time I see the two of them on stage together I totally swoon.

  13. Apparently she is also very supportive of veterans and people serving in the military. She tours VA hospitals and stops by to sign autographs and talk to as many of the patients and staff as possible. I know because my dad met her and I was supremely jealous when he came home with a picture of Joan Jett. He couldn’t stop talking about how nice she was.

  15. Joan Jett and Autostarddle are my favorite things to internet, so this just made my day. Also buying “Unvarnished”. That also made my day. So so obsessed with her…some people in this world will claim that she made me gay. XD First started questioning my sexuality just after watching “The Runaways” and checking out a ton of her CDs…

  17. That specific scene in The Runaways is exactly what got me started on Joan Jett. HOTTEST THING EVER.

    She is my goddess.

  18. Joan Jett is forever one of my musical idols. She was one of the kick ass ladies my mom raised me on (she would watch MTV when I was a baby and awake at all hours, so I’ve loved Blondie and Cyndi Lauper and motherfucking Joan Jett literally since infancy). I’ve gotten the chance to see her three times, and every time she put on a phenomenal show. I am so pumped for this album. Like, so beyond pumped.

  21. Joan Jett = Awesome.

    Really, KStew playing her is the only reason I was convinced Kristen could actually act.

  22. Awesome article! I will have to add The Runways to my ‘to-watch’ list!

    Now if only I could listen to “I Hate Myself for loving you” without thinking of my ex!

  23. Got to sing “I Hate Myself For Loving You” during my senior year for this Rock Project thing my friend dragged me into. I probably sucked but I felt so awesome doing it.

  24. I saw her play at a college on Staten Island, and she had every right to be UGH THIS PLACE but she was so funny and gracious talking about playing early shows with the Blackhearts on SI and how much she loved the welcome she got.

    I was in the back row and felt like she was singing right to me. What a rock star.

  25. I have had a crush on Joan for as long as I can remember and watching her perform,”I hate myself for Loving You” live is nearly orgasmic. I guess I like leather clad girls who play a mean guitar.

  28. Speaking of the movie: they sent Joan some discs of soundtrack tracks, and one song was (i think) “Cherry Bomb”.

    Joan replied that that track was a bad mix – somehow they’d put her vocal on it.

    They replied “Nope – that was Kristen.”

  29. Ugh. I have been going through such a joan jett phase lately. Attracted to her like no other..that damn wink

  30. You need to stop glorifying her! She’s a predator and I know! I was there I was 15 she was 20 she’s not tough she’s not nice she’s fake and does to much weed has no mind of her own and she’s evil

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