17. Album by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kZWlIgKyU&list=OLAK5uy_lfFkmAv1pOn5HklZTfRjqW8HxQTG9yxdA&index=1
In the July of 1983, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts released their third album titled...wait for it..., "Album." The song "Fake Friends" was the first single released from Album, which hardly broke the Top 40 list, followed by the cover of "Everyday People," which again, barely made it into the Top 40. It had to have been disappointing for Jett and the band, considering that their previous album had the number one song on the charts for seven weeks in a row with their cover of "I Love Rock and Roll," as well as a top-ten charting cover of "Crimson and Clover." While "The French Song" got a little airplay, and MTV showed the video a few times, since the song was about having a threesome, and since the chorus that sings about having the threesome is in French, it just wasn't the kind of song that could get onto the charts in 1983 America. As far as album sales go, Album reached only as high as #20 on the 1983 album charts. And frankly, I think it got that high in part due the excellent album cover. The '80s hair, the black leather outfit, the red Converse sneakers (Hondo had a pair of red sneakers in elementary school!), the sexy pout while playing the guitar and leaping into the air with a double knee bend, all against a bright yellow backdrop--I mean, damn! That cover really pops!
I don't recall ever playing "Fake Friends" during a school dance, nor do I have any memories of any songs on this album being related to my summer lifeguarding gig. Truth be told, I basically ignored this album when it came out. So why is it ranked so high on my list?
Fast forward from senior year high school to my second year of work at BYU-Idaho. The school had finished building it's new conference center / indoor gym that featured a large indoor elevated running track that wrapped around the upper story of the gym. (8 laps equaled one mile.) It was about that time that my boss called me into his office and said some things about my work that basically made me feel like all the hard work I had put in during the previous months of working 70-80 hour work weeks had been a waste and that I was not appreciated or valued by anyone at the university. This was also around the time when I was seeing a doctor about being pre-diabetic, and he wanted me to start working out every day, which was something I had avoided doing because of my long work hours.
Anyway, I spent about a week being super-depressed about all of this. I had completely lost my mojo, and I didn't know if I'd even get it back again. But then one day I felt that spark of rebellion that I'd had back in my high school years--that I-don't-give-a-damn-anymore attitude--and I decided that it was time to get my mojo back. So I decided I was going back to a 40-hour work week, and I got some running shoes and a new iPod and earphones, and I scoured the Apple Music playlists for some running music. When I came across the "Fake Friends" song, I thought it was a perfect fit for my playlist, so I checked out some of the other songs on the album and realized that I'd hit pay dirt. For $9.99 I could get 16 songs that were not only runnable (except for "Why Can't We Be Happy") but also had enough go-to-hell attitude to keep me inspired to keep running as long as they were playing. So I committed to an everyday workout routine of weightlifting and running around that elevated track for every day Monday-Saturday for at least an hour. And Album was the album that I listened to the most as I did that. It is the album that helped me get my mojo back and get me into arguably the best physical shape of my life--even better than when I was training to run marathons. The 1980s sound of driving guitars, the triple-extra-naughty lyrics, the don't-give-a-damn-bout-my-bad-reputation attitude--they all combined to make it a supremely listenable workout album as I jogged lap after lap and did push-up after push-up between miles.
Speaking of extra-naughty lyrics, along with my previous warning about "The French Song," please don't listen to the cover of the Rolling Stones' "Star Star" while you're around the wife and kids, unless you think they'd like to hear the word "starfucker" 62 times. I'm guessing they wouldn't. Also, be aware that "Coney Island Whitefish" has some awesome lyrics--especially if you think about your dumbass boss while you sing along to them--but I don't think you'd want the little ones to incorporate "Scumbag" into their vocabulary just yet.
Oh, and one more warning. The song "Locked Groove" is a 3 minute and 47 second song that you can basically stop listening to after the first minute, because the rest of the song is the same loop played over and over and over. See, when Joan released "Fake Friends" as a single, she put "Nitetime" on the B-side with a locked groove at the end of the song. That meant that if a restaurant put "Fake Friends" into the jukebox, some kid who was in the know would play the B-side of "Nitetime," and at the end of the song, it would just keep playing that loop over and over until the record was "manually rejected." So the people listening to the song would have to listen to that annoying loop for a while before they'd get so upset that they'd complain to the manager, who would then have to figure out how to get into the jukebox and stop the record from playing. And all the time this was happening, the kids who had selected the song would sit there and laugh at how the song was driving everyone nuts. Now, if I'd been in the know back when that song came out, I would have played "Nitetime" on every damn jukebox I came across. Yep. I was that kind of kid. And pulling off that giant practical joke is one more reason why I love Joan Jett.
Now, on a personal note, the song "Fake Friends" became especially meaningful to me as I reclaimed my mojo. It became even more meaningful about a year later when I ended up getting fired from BYU-Idaho. I do have about six people in Rexburg that I still consider to be genuine friends, but the rest of the campus, especially all of the administrators and faculty and local church leaders that repeatedly said how much they loved me and appreciated me and cared about me, were nothing more than fake friends. They were, in fact, whited sepulchres. So in the end, the one revelation I took from my time at BYU-Idaho--a truth I discovered in the hardest way possible--is that you've really got nothing to lose when you lose fake friends...except for your job.
Nardo
#17: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts—Album. Back in the day, I really gave Joan Jett the short shrift. (Metaphorically, not literally.) I had never heard of Joan Jett before “I Love Rock and Roll” started catching fire on the radio. It’s a great song, and I liked it. But then, it kind of became TOO big of a hit, and as a result I got kind of tired of the song. My feelings for Joan Jett were not helped when my unwitting, youthful homophobia made me uneasy when her follow-up hit, “Crimson and Clover,” featured “scandalous” lyrics where she sang about her love for another woman.
ReplyDeleteBy the time the album “Album” came out, I gave little thought to Joan Jett, despite the admittedly vibrant cover to the album. Later, I liked “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” but not enough to give Joan much attention. (That would have changed if I had taken a gander at the music video for the song at the time, because—damn! Joan is amazing in that video.)
Eventually, it was the use of “Bad Reputation” as the theme song for “Freaks and Geeks” and some write-ups about her by Nardo that really got me to finally appreciate Joan Jett.
I can see why you like this album so much. I can picture you running around the Ricks College campus angrily muttering the lyrics to “Star Star” or “Coney Island Whitefish” under your breath. (I’m glad you gave me the warning about the song lyrics before I played these songs in front of my children.)(It’s one of the reasons I didn’t update any of these comments over the summer, because I had to wait until my kids were back in school to give this “Album” a proper listen.)(“Album” demands a high volume level that can be heard throughout the house.)
This is definitely a “mood” album. When in the right mood it can be very cathartic. There is certainly a time when driving guitars and an occasional guttural scream just hit the right chord. Thanks, Joan!