Truth is, Joan Jett gives a big damn about her bad reputation. That's why, since her late-seventies stint with all-girl rock band the Runaways, she has always pulled a thick black curtain between her public and private realities--even if those realities seem oddly to mirror one another.
When, for example, detractors called the Runaways (who did little to counteract their sexualized, virago image) whores and dykes, Jett claimed the band “just said, ‘F*** you, man.'”
No denial, no affirmation, just an unprintable return volley. Three decades later, the never-married, cropped-haired rocker still refuses to discuss her personal life, especially her sexual orientation. But the press release touting her April performance at the Dinah Shore Weekend described her as “out lesbian rocker Joan Jett”, so she's not exactly keeping it a secret anymore, either.
If Joan Jett had never really been afraid of any deviation, she would resemble more one of her distant artistic cousins, Courtney Love, who is totally unable to erect a boundary between her sex-drugs-and-rock ‘n' roll public persona and her lusty, druggy, rock ‘n' roll private life. Between Love the symbol and Love the gritty reality is a completely transparent window, and we're constantly being invited to look in at the broken, messed up girl who, underneath all the screaming, has a big soft heart. True to her general socio-sexual incontinence, Love has no qualms about boasting she'd do girls--if they were porn-starry and slutty enough.
Instead, from the little we know of the real Joan Jett, she seems hard, focused, and a little mean. (Thanks to her interest in the U.S. military, she's been photographed a lot recently with the troops, in camouflage, toting a machine gun.) And draw whatever conclusion you like from her butch wardrobe, the blatant sadomasochism of 1999's Fetish, and her entourage of pierced, young leatherwomen. She ain't saying nothin'.
All that may change with the new era marked by the release of Sinner. The new CD, Jett's first regular U.S. release in seven years, may not be innovative musically. The music isn't actually new: most of the songs debuted on Naked, which came out in Japan in 2004. Even the single “Fetish” rears its raunchy, ball-gagged head again here.
But Sinner marks a real departure from Jett's former F-you attitude about her personal life. The CD boasts a lesbian love song “Everyone Knows” and the catchy single “ACDC,” a playful lover's complaint about her bisexual girlfriend who's “got girls, all over the world [and] men, every now and then.” (Jett recently announced that Carmen Electra, who mentioned once she had a crush on the rocker, will play the part of Jett's love interest in the video.)
As a result, Sinner is not a closet CD. It's not even subtle. If it were grand and thematic enough, Sinner would be a coming-out rock opera--Yes I Am with a political call-to-arms. The collection starts out with “Riddles,” an anti-Bush anthem with Dubya's infamous “Fool me once…” gaffe and Donald Rumsfeld's unknown-unknowns tommyrot tacked to the end. (The love affair with the military is apparently undergoing some revision.) Jett's go-to theme of rebellion, mixed with the language of sexual liberation, continues through “Change the World” and--less blatantly--in the two tracks co-written and recorded with Le Tigre's Kathleen Hanna.
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