An Open Letter To Rolling Stone (Joan Jett is PISSED and I don't blame her!)

JoanJett.com ^ | Joan Jett

[I_Love_My_Husband]

An Open Letter to Rolling Stone

This letter was written to rolling stone after their "women in "rock" issue was published, but was not printed by their editors. Please forward it to all the rocking people you know!!!!!

I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what i have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.

By RS standards, Rock is no longer a style of music but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!

Your poor choice of cover girls and featured artists brings to mind the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the breast-baring models inside..but we all understand that they have NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS--Which just might be offensive to women who are interested in sports or who might even be (gasp) real athletes.

Yes, Britney has a talented stylist and yes, somebody gave Shakira a Guns & Roses t-shirt to wear..but they ARE NOT NOW NOR WILL THEY EVER BE ROCK.

Maybe it's naive of me to expect any glimmer of rock'n'roll credibility OR respect for women from a magazine whose cover shot is regularly a naked underweight actress. The thing is , I AM a woman musician with a rock band, and as we all are I am STARVED for any little crumb of recognition that real women rockers might be thrown. So like a sucker I find myself short another five bucks ..and pissed enough to write my first letter to an editor. Avril Lavigne gets some studded accessories from Hot Topic so now she's "upholding the brazen tradition of teenage outrage"???!! Are you SERIOUS? And could someone please explain to me why people keep insisting on referring to PINK as rock? Wasn't she doing the white girl hip hop thing a minute ago? Yeah, she performed on the Aerosmith tribute show --big deal..she was on the Janet Jackson tribute show just before that--Whatever's trendy. WHO CARES. She's a Spice Girl reject...but I digress.

Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan. In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a birkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show ANYWHERE. But even in the RS WOMEN IN ROCK issue, a story like that gets ONE SENTENCE on the bottom of the last page of Random Notes.

Britney's Rock credentials? Well, she butchers the song "I Love Rock'n'Roll" on her latest record, and when asked about it the genius replies "Well, I've always loved Pat Benatar." And SHE is your Rock issue cover girl?? You should be REALLY embarrassed.

Sleater Kinney was the only rock group listed on the cover..and they got only half a page. Ashanti, the r&b back up singer who can't seem to do anything without "featuring Jah Rule," has two pages.

What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine important light on groups like these--instead they are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.

In your own letter from the editor you have the hypocritical balls to say "rock radio won't touch female artists, while the pop factory keeps churning out soundalike clones, and ambitious musicians with something to say find themselves left out in the cold."

The pages that follow those words are a blatant display that Rolling Stone magazine is happily working for the factory now too.

If the issue had been called "Women in Music"..or maybe "Some Cute Girls with Top 10 Records out Right Now"..I would have no beef with it. Corny as it may sound, ROCK is something which is still meaningful and even sacred to some of us. Use the word "rock" in bold letters next to a picture of Britney Fucking Spears, and you're turning your whole publication into a joke...and an offensive joke at that.

[Lib Buster]

And don't forget: Without Chrissy Hynde and the Pretenders, Rush Limbaugh wouldn't have such cool theme music!

[Tribune7]

I think JJ would rip the head off a typical feminist and feed it to her dog.

[Bella_Bru]

Exene Cervenka is the sort of person I'd be honored by if she threatened to kick my a**.

[Rocksalt]

How about Poison Ivy of the Cramps?

[John Lenin]

Interesting quote from Martha.

WOMANROCK: Are MP3s helping or hurting artists?

MARTHA:

It's saving our asses. The music industry is turning into a huge corporation that seems to care more about sales figures than music. Pop music is supposed to be accessible to the public, but CDs are being priced into oblivion. We're in an age of information; people know when they're being ripped off. So we log onto MP3, download what we like, and save the 17 bucks. I'm getting my MP3 site together now, because my songs tell me they want to go public.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

http://thedistillers.net/

That's the official site of the Distillers. Brody Armstrong sounds just like Courtney...intense...

[Recovering_Democrat]

Joan makes some very valid points. I believe she's as liberal as they come, too. But when someone or something is ripping into what you love and do for a living, your ire gets up.

She and Michael J. Fox did a movie "Light of Day" together, an interesting child-parent relationship film, as I recall.

[PLMerite]

I wouldn't mind seeing some pictures of that, it'd be cool to add to my Op Enduring Freedom file...

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

You should start a thread, "Women of Rock n Roll".

I've always liked The Pretenders. Very cool music.

I'm also guessing Rolling Stone either didn't bother mentioning, or gave only a line or two to Heart. And I don't think she really qualifies as a rocker, but Natalie Merchant has more talent in her toenails than Britney, Christina, or any of the other "New Rockers".

[Brad C.]

Sounds great to me, I didn't know she was still in music after all of these years. I will have to go search her out.

[ganesha]

Last night I went and saw Allison Pipitone at Nietzsches in Buffalo. That woman kicks ass. In addition some of her songs are quite beautiful. Pamela Ryder alo came up on stage and sang "love song to me", one of Allison's songs. The opening band was Antigone rising. If you want hard rock music, performed by women, which is worth listening to, you have to accept a certain amount of feminism and lesbianism. It goes with the territory. I find that less annoying than the Britney clones any day.

[Erasmus]

>>Exene Cervenka.

>You are the first FReeper I have met who has ever mentioned her!!!!!

Her?? I thought it was an it!

Something only gynecologists talked about.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

USO Tour May & June '99

Kirtland Airforce Base 2001 for deployed troops

USO tour 2001

More at her website joanjett.com click on the photo gallery section!

[Erasmus]

Another rock Diva not given enough credit, Chrissy Hynde.

Was to a concert of hers a couple of years ago. The best British backup band anywhere.

Guess what song got the biggest response?

Hint: It was about her hometown.

Hint II: It's used as the theme on a talk show.

<)B^)

[McGavin999]

Joan Jet is a Liberal, Feminist, Democrat, Pro-Abortion bitch.

She is also a woman who gave her time and put herself in considerable danger to entertain our troops when they needed it most.

In my book, that sends a lot of faults way, way into the background.

[John Lenin]

You are right about the Rush theme, she wrote that song 'My City Was Gone' during the height of all the rubber plants being shut down in Akron, Ohio.

[LilithUnfair]

"Joan Jet is a pal of NOW's President Patricia Ireland."

Yes, but she's still correct in her letter. Don't agree with her (or many other celebrity) political viewpoints, nor am I a fan of her music but she's right. There are women and girls in music, but very few true rock women or men for that matter anymore. It's all pop, bubblegum, wannabe Brit, Backstreet Boys trash. (I'd use the word garbage, but that would be too close to the band of the same name who actually ARE rock musicians.)

Lil

[A_perfect_lady]

Who reads Rolling Stone anyway? Fourteen year olds trying to decide whether to be reds (commies) or greens? I mean, come on, do serious writers read Reader's Digest to see what the latest, greatest, most happening cutting edge movements are going to be in 15 minutes? Rolling Stone. Don't make my wine come out my nose.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

I mean, come on, do serious writers read Reader's Digest to see what the latest, greatest, most happening cutting edge movements are going to be in 15 minutes?

That was hilarious! I *love* what you said....totally funny. I was just trying to imagine that too....LOL!!!

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

I find her lifestyle distateful, but Melissa Etheridge is another one who can smoke these newbies.