Tag: Joan Jett

The Original vs. The Cover – “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic14 Comments

For this version of The Original vs. The Cover, we are covering the classic song “I Love Rock & Roll” by The Arrows and by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.  We are not going to explore the cover by Britney Spears because, well it is Britney Spears and so not worthy!

The song was written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker of the band The Arrows back in 1975 and when it was released, it ran into a run of bad luck and never amounted to much on the charts thanks in part to a Paper Strike and no news was printed around its release.  The song itself was a reaction to the Rolling Stones song “It’s Only Rock & Roll (But I Like It)” according to an interview Merrill had with Songfacts.com…

“That was a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones’ ‘It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll.’ I remember watching it on Top of the Pops. I’d met Mick Jagger socially a few times, and I knew he was hanging around with Prince Rupert Lowenstein and people like that – jet setters. I almost felt like ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ was an apology to those jet-set princes and princesses that he was hanging around with – the aristocracy, you know. That was my interpretation as a young man: Okay, I love rock and roll. And then, where do you go with that?”

The band would play this song on Top of the Pops in 1976 and it was at that time, a young lady by the name of Joan Jett heard it while she was touring her band The Runaways.  She decided she wanted to record it, but The Runaways didn’t want to cover it so when she went solo, she recorded it herself.

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Halestorm – ReAniMate 3.0 – The CoVeRs eP – Album Review

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As I have said repeatedly, cover albums are not my favorite albums as usually they lack the imagination and creativity to make them feel like it is the band’s songs.  They stick too much to the original and who wants that.  If I want to hear something that sounds like the original song, I will listen to the original song.

I will keep an open mind with this review and do my best to do it justice.  Halestorm is now on their 3rd edition of their Reanimate the Covers E.P.’s.  I give the band credit for giving their fans something to tide them over until their next album.  As a music fan, it is nice to always get something new from your favorite bands even if it is a cover song.  However, Halestorm does a lot of covers.

After listening to the album repeatedly for the last few days, I feel I have a great grasp of the songs and can say that I am not overly impressed with the E.P. as a whole.  The band sticks pretty close to the original versions which is where my disappointment lies on most of the songs, but overall it is not a bad effort.  I would rather have a full album of new material though.

The opening track is “Still of the Night”, a Whitensake cover.  I have to admit I do like this song.  Yes, they stick close to the original version, but the vocal range is actually perfect for Lzzy and the band sounds really great.  What I like about Halestorm is that when they really rock it out, that is where they shine.  This song really gives them the opportunity to rock out.

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Women that Rock – Playlist

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Most of the rock albums I have are sung by men.  However, there are a lot of great rock songs and albums with female lead singers.  I was sitting here listening to Janis Joplin and started thinking about who were some of my favorite female lead singers that could rock it out.  Below is my list of my favorite Women that Rock.

Here we go.

“Piece of My Heart” – Janis Joplin

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