For decades and decades, women have been influencing our world of music. Spanning many genres, from folk to rock, these powerful women have never ceased to amaze societies globally. Today, we’re here to discuss arguably the most influential women in the hard rock category, the queen of rock, Joan Jett.
Joan Jett, born Joan Marie Larkin, first started her musical journey at the young age of 13. It was at this age that she had received her first guitar and began to learn the strings. However, her coach only taught her folk songs and caused Joan to quit. It wasn’t long until she picked it back up, but this time she wanted more than folk. She wanted an up-beat, loud and rowdy sound.
At 16 years old, Joan founded her all-girl band, The Runaways. They’re known most for their hit songs “Cherry Bomb” and “You Drive Me Wild.” Joan was the guitarist of the band, occasionally throwing in some vocals. Then, in 1977, the band began touring globally. They opened for popular bands like Van Halen, Ramones, Cheap Trick and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The band was able to gather a lot of popularity in Europe, Australia, Canada, South America and Asia, especially Japan. However, they had struggled to find success in the United States. After releasing a grand total of five albums, the band disbanded in 1979.
This wasn’t the end for Joan! Her solo debut album would be released on May 17, 1980, by Ariola Records in Europe. But struggle continued in the United States. Joan’s album was rejected by 23 major labels, causing Joan to have to release it independently with Blackheart Record Labels. This was a frequent challenge, since the music industry hand a very sexist view on women playing rock music. They believed it just couldn’t be done.
But boy, did she prove them wrong! In 1981, Joan made her first appearance on film, performing her hit song “Bad Reputation” at the Ritz in New York City. Things started looking good after this point. More band members had joined The Blackhearts, and after this a new album titled I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll was released. Their first single, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” was number 1 on the Billboard Top One Hundred for seven weeks in a row within the first half of 1982. To this day, it remains Billboard’s 56th greatest song of all time! And an honorable mention on this album may be “Little Drummer Boy,” which has made its way on my top-five favorite Christmas songs.
Joan Jett later released Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth in 1984, which led to several top 40 hits. She even brought back “Cherry Bomb” from The Runaways and made it a solo song. With the release of this album, she would perform with many exceedingly popular artists like Queen, Aerosmith and several more. She was one of the first English-speaking rock artists to gain popularity in Panama and the Dominican Republic. If you ask me, I say that Jett is an awesome first impression to English-language rock!
n 1988, Jett released her multi-platinum album Up Your Alley, which featured several amazing songs like a stupendous cover of the Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “I Hate Myself for Loving You.” The second song that I had mentioned was used by the NFL as a theme song for Sunday Night Football (a delectable choice).
She continues into the ‘90s! Jett released her album The Hit List in 1990, which consisted entirely of covers of other hit songs. A couple examples being “Dirty Deeds” by AC/DC and “Love Hurts” by Nazareth.
The momentum continued into the 2000s when Joan made an appearance in the popular Broadway production, The Rocky Horror Show, as Columbia. During this decade, the Blackheart Record Label continued to sign new talents as well as releasing a new album called Sinners.
Joan Jett’s career was so influential and action-packed that a movie was created called The Runaways in 2010. This was a biographical film about, you guessed it, The Runaways with Joan Jett. Jett was the executive producer of the film, and Floria Sigismondi was the writer and director, who also directed music videos for Marilyn Manson, David Bowie and the White Stripes.
To this day, she tries to spark change in society by supporting animal activist group, PETA, and she was the first to sign Billboard’s open letter on gun violence after the Pulse nightclub shooting of 2016. She is also a long-time vegetarian and supporter of LGBTQ+ rights.
And, as an honorable mention, Joan Jett performed during the pioneering grunge band Nirvana’s induction during the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in place of Kurt Cobain. This was awesome, and she was the perfect person to do so because of the respect she has for the industry. Not to mention that she is also a heavily influential individual just like Kurt was.
Joan still creates music and tours to this day. Masses of people know her name and continue to enjoy her music. In fact, she recently performed in Nov. 2022 in Pittsburgh, during Light Up Night, when the city lights the ice rink-surrounded tree for Christmas (where “Little Drummer Boy” would’ve been a perfect addition to the setlist). She was ahead of her time, and after much adversity, shattered the gender norms behind rock and roll, and for that she deserves a round of applause and more.
