Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

New York rock band Joan Jett & The Blackhearts formed after the 1979 breakup of Jett’s first group, The Runaways.

∙ The band started an independent label, Blackheart Records, to release their 1980 debut album, Joan Jett, which they initially sold out of a car trunk directly to fans.
∙ “Bad Reputation,” their punk-inflected 1981 hit single, became the theme song of the cult TV show Freaks and Geeks and made VH1’s list of the Top 100 Hard Rock Songs.
∙ In 1982, their fist-pumping garage-rocker “I Love Rock ’N Roll” topped the Pop chart for seven weeks.
∙ They’ve had three Top 10 Pop hits, including the Grammy-nominated “I Hate Myself for Loving You” and a cover of Tommy James & The Shondells’ “Crimson and Clover.”
∙ In 1987, the band had a hit with the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Light of Day”—a song Jett sang as frontwoman of fictional band The Barbusters in the movie Light of Day.
∙ Joan Jett & The Blackhearts were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.