12 Greatest Ever Hard Rock Solo Artists
10. Joan Jett
Emerging out of the California punk scene in the late 70's, no one had seen anything quite like the Runaways. Compared to the more female-fronted rock acts like Heart and Janis Joplin, this group of women set the hard rock world on fire with songs that exuded adolescent fury and punk rock aggression. While Lita Ford may have gone in a more metal direction after their disbandment, Joan Jett set herself up as the Punk Rock Queen.
As opposed to going in a full-on pop direction after the breakup, Jett decided to take the aggression she started with and turn it up even further. Embracing the more organic approach to her songwriting, Jett plugged into her amps and let it rip on tracks like "Bad Reputation" and "I Love Rock n Roll," both of which would soon become anthems of the rock genre. It might not have been as heavy as your typical metal outfit, but the pop smarts behind these tunes put a lot more grit back into the mainstream charts.
In an era when you had to look to a frontMAN for rock and roll, Joan Jett's attitude and delivery with her band the Blackhearts proved that she could kick ass even better than the boys could on any day of the week.