★★★★★
She used to be Under Age, now she's Of a Certain Age. Joan Jett is one of the longest living punkers around; she started under the foul wings of Kim Fowley as the rhythm guitarist and part time singer of The Runaways and eventually started her own group The Blackhearts. She's been offline for a while, but this new album is packed with high-energy tracks and the clever lyrics we remember from her earlier efforts...
- www.ink19.com
2013-10-22
★★★★★
To grow old, or not to grow old, that is the rockstar's perennial question; whether it is nobler to accept with grace the advancing years and maturity of middle-age, or whether to deny the passage of time in favour of the classic constructs of the rock'n'roll lifestyle: sex, drugs and hedonism. It's a dilemma you can't help but feel lies just beneath Joan Jett & the Blackhearts' new record, Unvarnished...
- www.beat.com.au
2013-10-16
★★★★★
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts 10th studio album, Unvarnished, oozes with the old school rock style Joan Jett became famous for since performing with The Runaways from the tender age of fifteen. If you've ever drunkenly danced or sung along to "I Love Rock N' Roll" or played Guitar Hero along to "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", then you've got Jett to thank for the fun times. Forty years on and Jett's still rocking out...
- www.theaureview.com
2013-10-16
★★★★★
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts Greatest Hits Blackheart Records There have been a few Joan Jett collections floating around since the former Runaway started dominating the rock scene as a solo artist, but some collections, while quite good, were just we not comprehensive enough for her many die-hards. Her new greatest hits collection, which was released amidst the buzz of the film The Runaways, is the most complete Jett collection ever (just wondering - where is the box set...
- www.music-news.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
A career's worth of outtakes, half covers and 13 of 22 from her 1983-86 heyday, this may end up a last gasp. But her simultaneous rediscovery by Warner bigshots and angry old gurls leaves room for hope that instead it will prove a marker...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-10-10
★★★★★
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...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-10-10
★★★★★
hasn't lost a step, hasn't gained one either ("Spinster," "You Got a Problem")
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-10-10
★★★★★
The title signifies something cruder than coverees Hendrix, Richman, and Beach Boys, who aren't likely to show up on WNCN or WPAT themselves, and its moral certitude is what you have to love about her. She's a bit simple, our Joan, but so undoubting she can get away with transporting Route 128 to the West Side Highway...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-10-10
★★★★★
Jesus I wish she was just a little bit better than she actually is, and by closing side one with the cover exacta "Tulane" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog," she comes this close to convincing me she's made the leap. But though nobody else male or female puts out such a reliable brand of hard rock, lean and mean and pretension-free, and though being female gives her an edge in a quintessentially male subgenre, not since her start-up has she made something special of her populist instincts...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-10-10
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