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JOAN JETT: Hard rock poster girl
from: The Idaho Statesman
JOAN JETT was the only girlie poster my mother allowed me to hang on my bedroom wall -- except that it really wasn't a girlie poster at all.
This wasn't the same as the Bo Derek and Catherine Bach pin-ups my junior-high pals drooled over. (My mom wouldn't let her 13-year-old son objectify women. Sheesh, what a drag, huh?)
But Mom saw this poster as an acceptable compromise with her boy's erupting hormones. Jett stood ominously, dressed in ever-present black. She wore enough dark eye makeup to out-scowl an army of raccoons. She was somehow provocative, but also looked like she might hop off the wall and kick my teeth in.
I was infatuated.
That persona, along with Jett's ability to out-rock many of her male peers, made her one of the most successful recording artists of the 1980s. She only had one No. 1 smash -- the classic "I Love Rock 'N Roll" -- but it was a biggie: Casey Kasem spent nearly two months finishing his Top 40 countdown with that anthem.
Soon after, American radio got a full-on blast of Jett's hard-rock crunch: "Crimson and Clover" and "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" both hit the Top 20 during the next six months. I bought the full album (a cassette tape) of "I Love Rock 'N Roll" and played it until it warped.
Jett sneered her way onto the charts again in 1988 with the Top 10 song "I Hate Myself For Loving You." By this time, she was a bona fide role model for young women. Although Jett began her musical career in a jailbait-fantasy band, The RUNAWAYS, she had evolved into a fiercely independent female rocker who always seemed in control of her destiny. While fellow RUNAWAYS alumna Lita Ford crawled around spilling out of her bra on MTV, Jett never lowered herself to sexploitation. She was too busy cranking that Melody Maker guitar and staring down naysayers who couldn't accept that chicks rocked.
Eventually, Mom tired of waging the war against my flooding testosterone. Two or three years later, Jett was replaced by an "Armed and Dangerous" pin-up -- buxom babes wearing camouflage swimwear and toting machine guns. (Yes, my parents are still amazed that I never required therapy).
I soon realized how stupid that poster was. It quickly came down, too, to make room for new passions: Motorhead, Ozzy Osbourne and other heavy-metal warriors.
I've always harbored guilt about Jett's fall in the bedroom poster hierarchy. So, just to clear the air, here's to you, JOAN JETT: As long as you had a guitar in your hands, nobody was ever more armed and dangerous.
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