Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - I Love Rock 'n Roll (1981)
I saw Joan Jett & The Blackhearts at last year's Virgin Mobile Free Fest. Awesome. This year the kick-ass-woman-from-the-old-days spot is taken by Patti Smith.
This song does everything I normally don't like: repetitive guitar riffs, boring drum part that a machine could do, and really repetitive vocals. Somehow it all works. This is grungy, this is dirty. This song actually has a pretty cool guitar solo as well. Joan was 23 or so when she sang "... knew he must have been about seventeen", and every teenage boy loved her for it. The shouted chorus, and the spoken/sung over nothing but clapping hands end of verses makes this song perfect for every Rock sing-a-long you've every heard.
The production on this song is actually tight. The guitar is crunchy and dirty, but aside from the solo where it lingers, all of the normal riffs are tightly controlled. The drums do not ring, the bass doesn't crackle... all in all, the song makes you think garage/punk but upon closer inspection it is really professionally produced.
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