Consumer Guide Album

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth [MCA, 1984]
Seekers after the unvarnished rock and roll truth needn't haunt used record stores and postbohemian beer joints--here it is in all its generic glory, with an independent woman on top providing a preideological political kicker. The problem for those of us who still care about "art" is that it's all a little too generic--in 1984 they may be better than the Stones, but they'll never be as good. I don't miss Mick--if Joan's lyrics are rarely clever, they're always pithy, and these days she's the smarter singer--but I do miss Keith, some musician whose writing/playing might make the songs sound like models rather than examples of the genre. B+