She hangs with Alice, she fills in for Kurt, she toasts Lemmy and she still slays live. Joan Jett is still the coolest of the cool. This is a teen anthem for the not to be messed with. That slide guitar riff and that down beat delivery. She was the coolest rock star I’d ever seen. Joan’s 1988 album Up Your Alley found it’s way into my record collection pretty close to it’s release. This was the era ex-Runaways band mate Lita Ford was making 80’s heavy metal ballads with Ozzy Osbourne and getting her Deadly Kissed*. “Hey Jack, it’s a fact they’re talkin’ in town I turn my back and you’re messin’ around I’m not really jealous, don’t like lookin’ like a clown”Īfter The Runaways, after Bad Reputation, Joan had already had some hits in her own right (including the megahit I Love Rock And Roll). She’s beaming this down from Planet Cool for the rest of us to help us get through our own messy stuff. The idea that anyone would stand Joan Jett up is a scientific impossibility. “Midnight getting uptight but where are you? You said you’d meet me but it’s quarter to two”

It’s slow and low and sliding around like unsecured ballast in a small fishing boat’s galley during a storm. And yet the real killer bit is the guita… is that a guitar? Is that just a guitar? Is that a synth set to Bassoon brass FX played through a guitar? Why does that axe sound so horney? The effects of Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco echoing up through the decades and into 1988. Those slowed down 70’s glam rock drums and hand claps are pure glitter scene. How can something so 80’s, so smoothed off and over produced sound so gutteral?

Joan jett i hate myself for loving you