Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – Unvarnished – 2013

Unvarnished is the twelfth studio album from Joan Jett and the Blackheart. It has been a long time since I listened to her. I never really understood if the blackhearts was really a separate band or not though. I belive that she has released a few album solely as Joan Jett also. But as I said, it was a long time since I listened to her, the last time was the Change-Up album which to me was totally unnecessary. It wasn’t very good and it didn’t sound like Joan Jett.

Unvarnished, on the other hand, does! This is the Joan Jett sound! It’s pure rock and the songs are reasonably catchy for the most part. Apperantly there’s a guest performer on Unvarnished too. one other than the multi-instrumentalist Dave Grohl co-wrote and played all instruments on the opening track Any Weather. To me, it’s a little bit over-produced track. Too much compressing and that kind of stuff, but it’s a nice song. It fits the album really well!

I do like some of the other songs better though and you don’t have to listen very much before you’re into the feel on Joan Jett. Unvarnished might not be her best album ever but it’s perfectly fine and quite listanable. Maybe it’s a little too “standard” but for fans of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts I think this will be just fine! On the limited edition, which I have listed too, there’s a few live songs at the end which totally steals the show. Classics like Bad Reputation and the Runaways classic Cherry Bomb is hard to beat with new material. Even the monster hit I Hate Myself For Loving You outshines the new studio material.