Song of the day 3/31/12 (the inaugural edition).... I saw him dancing there by the record machine....

It's hard to believe, but I started following the Billboard music chart thirty years ago this week. I bought a copy of the magazine from the Listening Booth record store in the Quakerbridge Mall back in 1982, and have found a way to get an issue wherever I was living until I started subscribing directly (and with a 200$ subscription, it ain't an easy thing for someone not in "the biz"). However, between my love for music, willingness to explore new artists, and the almost choreographed structure of the pop chart kept my mind pretty busy as a youngster. Also I discovered music I never would've been exposed to on the evershrinking radio landscape (especially these days) with the help of Billboard. With the magazine and Casey Kasem (then Shadoe Stevens - I stopped listening after that) the history of pop music was only a page or a radio dial away.

To commemorate this I'm starting up a daily feature to my blog - the "Song Of The Day", taking a track from each week's Hot 100. It's only appropriate that I start with the Hot 100 of the week I started: April 3, 1982....

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "I Love Rock & Roll"
from the album I Love Rock & Roll (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 Peak: #1 (seven weeks)



What a song to start with. As cheesy as this track may sound now - this was my generation's "Nirvana" moment, where the adult contemporary fluff dominated by Kenny Rogers, Olivia Newton-John, and Air Supply gave way to this dirty punk guitar sound that had more than a passing hand in influencing grunge less than a decade later. "I Love Rock & Roll" is actually a remake of a single by the British/American rock group that wasn't Foreigner, the Arrows.



Joan Jett was formerly a member of the seminal all-woman rock group the Runaways, but the success of "I Love..." put Jett in success way beyond her former group. She topped the pop charts for almost two months, and the album reached #2 as well. Although Jett would score with a few more hits, this would be her biggest.

Weird Al Yankovic would go on to parody the hit by releasing "I Love Rocky Road", while Britney Spears marked the nadir of her career with a trainwreck of a cover version of her own.

But most important - Jett was the inspiration for the comic strip Bloom County's awesome Tess Turbo...
And that's it. Tune in tomorrow for some more SOTD with a singer with a voice as big as his schnozz....