Is Joan Jett the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll?

Introduction

        The short answer is yes and no. She can be depending on how you define "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll." But I think she is really up there with the legends.

        Some people may define Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll as the greatest rock vocalist, and many agree it is usually Ann Wilson (Nancy Wilson is a great vocalist too), Pat Benatar, or others, but those are the ones that I’m more familiar with and big fans of. They have extremely large vocal ranges that not many well-known people can match.

        If the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll is the most influential to the genre, some may cite Sister Rosetta Tharpe because of her literal invention of rock ‘n’ roll, where she was doing it way before familiar rock pioneers were doing it in the 1950s. Is she the Queen or is she just on a whole different level above all these menial titles?

        Even the King of Rock 'n' Roll will generate a big discussion, because Elvis Presley pointed to Fats Domino as the real King and didn’t like himself being portrayed as such. However, Elvis had great stage presence and energy that entirely changed the genre, so many people will credit him. Depending on how you define your constraints, people will disagree on the King or Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I will share my thoughts on the matter, specifically taking a look at Joan Jett and analyzing why I think she deserves to be a recipient of this idea of the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Joan Jett's Backstory

        If you don't know who Joan Jett is, you might know about some of her greatest hits like I Love Rock 'n' Roll or I Hate Myself for Loving You.

The Runaways in 1976 (clockwise from top left): Lita Ford, Sandy West, Jackie Fox, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie.

        Joan Jett got her first guitar at 13 years old. At 16, she became a founding member of the all girl band The Runaways with drummer Sandy West, later joined by Micki Steele (briefly), Jackie Fox, Lita Ford, and Cherie Currie. Cherie fronted the band initially but Joan shared lead vocals and played rhythm guitar. The Runaways performed from 1975 to 1979 and while they were never popular in the United States, they saw great fame overseas like in Japan. The Runaways were associated heavily with the growing punk rock movement and especially with the British punk scene. They became the opening act for bands like The Ramones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Cheap Trick, and Van Halen. They broke up because Joan Jett and Lita Ford disagreed over musical styles. I love their music because it really sounds like any great creative classic rock from the era or the 1980s (better, even), and it is even more impressive during a time when all girl bands were not really a thing and they became famous before any of them were 18 years old. That doesn't even sound possible. These girls could rip on their instruments together and just about bust the door down to classic rock that was more favorable to men, and they released 4 great albums each year.

        After the breakup, Joan started a brief solo career with members of The Sex Pistols before forming and becoming the frontwoman of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

Joan Jett performing live with her signature Gibson Melody Maker in Norway, during the 1980s

        Joan Jett is amazing because of the raw power she brings to her music. She covers a few different songs throughout her early albums, which generally try to stay true to the originals, like the tempo, with some changes in lyrics. A lot of the songs are from the 1950s and 1960s, most of them rock ‘n’ roll songs. Her covers are almost always better than the original songs because she makes them harder, with the powerful guitars, drums, and her ferocious voice. 

        However, Joan also has a long list of original songs that mainly emphasize rebellion and freedom from a past relationship. I mentioned two of Joan's most famous songs, but another one is the namesake of her first album, Bad Reputation. A rockstar was not seen as a womanly profession, but Joan took all the hits aimed at her throughout her journey from The Runaways to her career with the Blackhearts, earning herself a bad reputation. Additionally, according to the music video, Joan faced rejection from many record labels before rising to the top of the charts and even started her own label, Blackheart Records. Bad Reputation is a great pledge of retaliation towards all the negativity Joan received in her career. I Love Rock 'n' Roll is a cover of a song of the same name from 1975, but Joan popularized it in the United States as her version became a US Billboard Hot 100 number one single for seven weeks. I Hate Myself for Loving You is an original song in 1988 that marked a comeback for Joan at the top 10 of US Billboard Hot 100 since the early 1980s.

Why Joan Jett Is Legendary

        I can tell that Joan is a natural born charismatic leader and an engaging performer just from watching videos of her live. Her qualities as a performer are akin to how Elvis Presley was as a performer, revered for his charisma and his movement on stage. The biggest reason why I love Joan is because of her early and less popular music that drew so much inspiration from 1950s style rock 'n' roll, that makes you bang your head and mash the gas pedal on the interstate highway. It almost seems that, historically, most famous women who succeeded in the music industry are at such a high level because they were great singers. However, while one may seek to criticize Joan's singing, somehow, she makes it work and it conveys such a youthful yet ferocious spirit. Rock 'n' roll proves that you don't need to be an opera singer to be great. I listened to the original Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry, and I only knew the version from Back to the Future that Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) sang. I also listened to Jimi Hendrix's version, but I found the vocals to be similar to Chuck's. Let's just say their voices are not anywhere up there with the greatest. The beauty of it is that Chuck and Jimi shine in other areas like with their guitar skills and their performances. Jimi Hendrix is a legend and he totally destroys everyone on a guitar. Marty McFly did Chuck Berry's duckwalk and played guitar behind his head. Maybe it's the difference in sound technology, but I initially liked Marty McFly's version much better because his voice sounded better with the blues beat and you could feel his energy as he was all over the stage, but now that I am learning more about the earlier guitarists and their exploits, they are getting more interesting to me. My point is, rock ‘n’ roll is not a singing competition. Opera isn’t a guitar shredding competition. Music comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms, even absolute silence.

        Joan Jett is amazing because she is like a female Marty McFly, filling the stage with her youthful rebellious spirit of a 1980s teen movie and jumping around vigorously with her guitar. I can see her doing all those crazy fun moves that Marty did, as a kid dreaming to be a rockstar without the adults resenting his rebellious attitude. Joan embodies that powerful feeling of a coming-of-age film, where you're a young soul with the will to be free and learning to be excited about what's coming in your future. Joan interacts with her audience and inspires them to sing along. Joan is also full of quirks. Her gum chewing on stage and her eyelid raising are very quirky. She can easily be the loudest in the room because her voice is all over the place, not bland or monotone, she shouts very powerful vocal interjections between lyrics with so much passion ("OWW!"), and she moves with great energy that is like a fire that keeps burning hotter. While Chuck Berry or Jimi Hendrix can set their guitars on fire, Joan is on her own level because she gives rock ‘n’ roll young energy and funny quirks while making it faster and louder. You could look at Chuck or Jimi as a young person and easily tell yourself you couldn't play the guitar like that, but you look at Joan and you see that yes, she's young and I can relate to her dangerous misunderstood-by-authority attitude, and yes, her Bad Reputation jumps are so badass they could rotate the Earth. Joan may not have a height advantage, but she has the nerve to uppercut a Biff Tannen and score hits from a six-shot shot by the hip that she learned to shoot at 7-Eleven. Joan Jett embodies the idea that there is not a lot that can't be solved with superior firepower, and in a lot of ways, she destroys the early rock pioneers just from her focus, commitment, and sheer will. I listen to Elvis’ music like Jailhouse Rock, Blue Suede Shoes, and Hound Dog and I’m like, I need a Joan Jett & the Blackhearts cover of this, the guitar sound is too tame from decades-old methods… not that it’s still not enjoyable.

Marty McFly, much like Joan Jett, fills the stage with his youthful rebellious spirit of a 1980s teen movie that no one else in rock can do. He doesn't give a damn about his bad reputation with Mr. Strickland and the Battle of the Bands judges who rejected him (did you spot Huey Lewis?).

        These qualities should be the reason why Joan Jett is referred to by some as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. Much like Elvis Presley, Joan may not be the best vocalist, guitarist, you fill in the blank, but her moves, her energy, her style, and her youth are so intense and contagious that it almost makes her weaknesses irrelevant. Joan did a lot of covers, but Elvis also did a lot of songs that he didn’t write. Joan’s more modern ‘80s guitar and drum sound, as well as making music faster and harder, easily tops the original rock ‘n’ roll songs, and she also does have some original music with great rockabilly sound. Joan's youthful spirit mixed with her powerful ferocious New York-accented voice make her voice work. Her black leather and her red PRO-Keds give her such an iconic look (I originally thought they were Converse All Star shoes/Chuck Taylors. I think Joan wears both but the red ones seem to be PRO-Keds. It doesn't help that they look the same. And, thanks, ‘80s camera technology. I think I read somewhere that they market Keds to women now so maybe that's why I never heard of them). The great retro-style rock 'n' roll beats and her immense stage presence with her shouting vocal interjections puts her on a level almost unmatched by the rock 'n' roll pioneers, and helps secure her potential position as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll.

Cover art of Joan Jett's album, Album (1983), with her Gibson Melody Maker and red canvas shoes, which she frequently wears in some of her lesser known music videos.

        Despite all of Joan's good qualities, it is very hard to pick a single woman for the title of Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. All female rockstars are so different from each other in their own way and they all have their own unique style of rock. For example, If I were asked which one is more rebellious, I couldn't tell you, because they all are, expressed in different ways. Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders has an amazing voice and her band has a clear 1950s rock style that I was immediately drawn to. Pat Benatar probably has one of the greatest vocal ranges I ever heard and meshes perfectly with Neil Giraldo's guitar riffs. The Wilson sisters have really heartfelt ‘80s power ballads right up there with Journey. But they are all different and they draw inspiration from different sources. This is what amazed me about the 1980s... so much amazing unique sounding music that I cannot comprehend how everyone invented new sounds in a rapid industry. You can apply that to everything now. I can't go out and enjoy shopping for a small sporty commuter sedan because the variety doesn't exist in the United States anymore like in the 2000s and 1990s. Automakers know that they get more profits selling crossovers and bigger SUVs even though it takes much more energy to move them around. I hate how much more I have to press on the gas coming out of a turn and think about all that wasted energy when I drive a crossover.

Joan Jett telling me exactly what I can do about my blog post.

"A girl can do what she wants to do and that's what I'm gonna do

An' I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation"

- Joan Jett, Bad Reputation (1981)

"Oh but it's hard to live by the rules

I never could and still never do"

- Chrissie Hynde, Talk of the Town (1980)

"Knock me down, it's all in vain

I get right back on my feet again"

- Pat Benatar, Hit Me With Your Best Shot (1980)

        I am fascinated because looking back at their golden years, there are so many variations of so damn cool that we can rock out with now because of great people who were exceptionally talented at what they did and refused to back down from opposition. They all get their names etched into human history for inspiring hearts and minds all over the world, quite possibly the best outcome that could be obtained. But here is one thing I learned that Joan can do that puts her in a class by herself: like Marty McFly, she can take good old rock ‘n’ roll and make it HARDER! Joan Jett is not known for being a female Elvis or for her super hard rockabilly, and she may not have sold as well, but this is what she means to me. She still had lots of success and she is played on any classic rock radio station! If that does not represent any form of cultural impact, then I don't know what does. Whether you think Joan Jett is or is not the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, she will always be a Queen of Noise!

P.S.

        Happy birthday, Joan Jett (9/22/23)!

        I really wanted to share as best as I could how influential Joan Jett seems to be and why I am fascinated by her backstory. It is great that she broke down barriers and inspired many women to get into rock, but her being a female Elvis is why I like her, and photographer Mick Rock, “The Man Who Shot the Seventies,” even calls her that. I realize that I have always liked the old school 1950s style of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly with the occasional doo-wop backup singers but with more guitar, more drums, more synthesizers, more anything, and that's why I was drawn to Joan Jett and any 1980s rock or pop rock very recently. I recognized her hit songs and it brought me back to a time when I would be there with older family members who played Guitar Hero on Xbox 360 back in the day, probably the first I heard of Joan Jett. It is so wild to know that the brain can still remember music like that after all those years even though it doesn't know who sang it and wouldn't have been able to recite the song until it is heard again all these years later, and after one listen, it all comes back like a bolt of lightning. When I was a kid and I didn’t know any musicians, I would hear Pat Benatar come on the car radio and think, hey, it’s the rocker lady with the beautifully amazing voice, and when Joan Jett came on the radio with I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll, I would think, hey, it’s the cool rocker girl with the deep voice… OWW! If old-school rock ‘n’ roll from the 1950s represents gunpowder during a time of swords and spears, Joan embodies the idea of the American military during a time of line infantry tactics: they get pushed around by the redcoats so they do war in aggressive unconventional ways, earning them a bad reputation. When you keep pushing them around, they still have the means to replenish and redeploy anywhere in the world. Okay, I skipped a few hundred years. I'm just one guy offering my opinions in this article and I would love to know what people think. Just a year ago, I did not know who any of these people were.

        A great example of how Joan's voice works is in The Runaways - School Days. Her youth captures the spirit of the song being sung by a high schooler. If an amazing vocalist sang the song, the song would simply not work as well because it would feel too sophisticated for a rebellious young high school kid narrating the song.

        A great example of Joan doing a cover song better than the original is her cover of Modern Lovers - Roadrunner. The original vocalist is a lot more monotone and sounds like a hungover college student, but Joan really emphasizes the lyrics with her energy and gives much more life to the song. The original song was about Boston, Massachusetts! The original video is sped up footage of driving through old Boston streets. The original song is also briefly used in the School of Rock (2004) because it helped shape the punk rock genre before the genre was widely popular, and Jack Black's character loves punk rock.

        Joan Jett also does Star Star way better than Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones ever did.

        If you need a hint as to which Joan Jett songs have a 1950s-style rock 'n' roll beat, here are some examples from her albums:

• From Bad Reputation (1980): almost every song including Make Believe (cover), You Don't Know What You've Got, Shout, Let Me Go, Jezebel, Wooly Bully (cover), Call Me Lightning (cover), Hanky Panky (cover)
• From I Love Rock 'n' Roll (1981): Nag, Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran cover)
• From Album (1983): Tossin' and Turnin' (Bobby Lewis cover), Star Star (Rolling Stones cover)
• From Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth (1984): I Love You Love Me Love (Gary Glitter cover), Frustrated, Long Time, Talkin’ ‘bout My Baby, I Need Someone (The Belmonts cover, this one is doo-wop! I wish they did more of these rock-mixed-doo-wop stuff)
• From Good Music (1986): Good Music; Fun, Fun, Fun (The Beach Boys cover)
• From Up Your Alley (1988): Tulane (Chuck Berry cover)

Cover art of Joan Jett's album I Love Rock 'n' Roll (1982), photographed by Mick Rock. Mick Rock's photography is compiled into a book called SHOT! by Rock: The Photography of Mick Rock. He wrote about this iconic shot, calling Joan the female Elvis with her rockabilly look. She sings about her bad reputation, but she is a good person.

Joan Jett photographed by Mick Rock in NYC, 1980.

Joan Jett photographed by Mick Rock in NYC, 1980.

Joan Jett's first car was a beautiful 1983 Jaguar XJ-S HE V12 that she bought before she even had her driver's license. One or two years of Blackheart success and here are the results. They don't make them like they used to. Jaguar's more modern F-Type is a sporty E-Type spiritual successor and they no longer make a luxurious grand tourer like the XJ-S was, with a massive V12. It could be a coincidence, but maybe she has a thing for Jaguars, after covering a song about her XKE shining so brightly and singing about a big Jag car with a baby by her side in a certain Bruce Springsteen song. Oddly enough, I watched an interview of hers where she wanted a '57 Ford Thunderbird with the "porthole" window like one she drove in Little Liar... perhaps a downgrade from a Jaguar? I could get used to it. I'd love to downgrade to a modern classic like a Lincoln Town Car, or a Buick Roadmaster station wagon, or a Lexus LS400, or an unmolested Honda Civic coupe before they got big, blobby, and ugly.

Joan Jett performing in 1983.

The Runways original lineup. Left to right: Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Sandy West, and Jackie Fox.