Props and Pounds goes to rock legend Joan Jett for telling it like it is.....

The following letter by Joan Jett was written to Rolling Stone after their 'Women in Rock' issue was published, but was not printed by their editors.
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.
[This message was edited Tue Jan 14 23:28:01 PST 2003 by fonkywonder]

While every word she writes is true she just looks petty by writing this letter.

How long until www.npgmusicclub.com will post this?

Joan! I LOVE her!

Right on!

But Pink does rock.

blah blah blah... why is it people only get pissed off with the music industry when they can't sell albums anymore? Prince? Tom Petty? Courtney Love? Little Richard? Joan Jett? christ...

AaronForever said:

Are you saying that Christ can't sell records anymore?

AaronForever said:

Christ? Christ is still very popular in music.

You owe me a

nope. Christ is all washed up.

AaronForever said:

Seems to me the article was much, much more about Rolling Stone magazine than the industry.

Supernova said:

true. but it's the same old song from another washed up artist.

The question is :
To who belongs Rolling Stones ?
Vivendi-Universal, Warner or Sony ??

AaronForever said:

Joan has legitimate complaints.

Joan who??


what a lame 10th grade letter

Moonbeam said:

sure she does. and so do all the other whiners and complainers. they just never speak up until they're irrelevant. everything's a-okay as long as the money's rolling in. no one makes a peep. the minute they become wased up, they bitch and moan about the industry and the competition from the new kids.

And then there are those that complain from the very beginning, even at the height of their popularity like Nirvana, New Order, Tricky, Pearl Jam. These are the people that actually are able to do something about the industry. They don't keep mum just to sell some records.

lovemachine said:

Very petty. We all realize that "Rolling Stone" sucks but I just can't believe how that whole letter was all about her! Whose worse?

VinnyM27 said:

it wasn't all about her...she mentioned some other rock groups also, The Donnas, The Distillers, etc...

fuck the haters....Joan told it like it is...u go girl.
[This message was edited Sat Nov 23 20:17:21 PST 2002 by LadyCabDriver]

I give Her Props.Joan is a Artist&I agree with what She said.

AaronForever said:

It's not their fault the music industry (and those magazines that sell pop culture) is a shadow of its former self.
[This message was edited Sat Nov 23 21:52:49 PST 2002 by Supernova]

AaronUnlimited said:

Being irrelavent in the oh so important pop world (especially of today considering what's going on) doesn't necessarily mean irrelavence period. What you hold high as relevance is not necessarily what every single recording artist wants down to the precise nature of what goes on within the market. That goes beyond Joan Jett.

way to go Joan! stick it to the corporate man!

Wow! Joan ,I Can't Believe you said that stuff. But don't you know probably nobody Cares because the Teens all like who and what's Popular or In now. Record companies are making Money with the Younger groups and that's what's being Played on radio. Brittney,Shakira,Christina,Pink they are all young Girls . Don't name call them Joan they are Hot and they are Now. That's all that is Important. I dig them all. Let them do their thing. Aaron you are Too Much really.

AaronUnlimited said:

I'm sure she would have complained had a list of this type surfaced years before.

AaronForever said:

joan jett fucking rocks... ...

not that i had any respect for britney spears in the first place, but i somehow have even less now...



that's just sad really...

After reading the article it doesn't sound like Joan even wrote this. It sounds like a fan wrote it ("Joan would come on stage") and maybe they just liked it so they posted it on their website. And plus on her website it says "This letter was written to rolling stone after their "women in "rock" issue was published, but was not printed by their editors." So it seems someone took the liberty to add "by Joan Jett". By the way, I love Joan Jett and we need more woman like her YESTERDAY!!

So Joan Jett doesn't have a right to complain about something she loves just because she doesn't sell millions of records anymore?

Anyway, the letter is not about who's selling millions or who is in now, it's about these pop princess being paraded around as the greatest thing to rock, when in fact, they have very little to do with rock.

"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. "
Get it?