Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Sinner

[3/5] Joan Jett makes Courtney Love look like Hilary Duff. An original member of 1970s power-rockers the Runaways, Jett is better known as a sneering solo artist wielding her sexuality like a scythe. On Sinner, her first studio album in over a decade, Jett comes out fighting with an insanely catchy, Mötley Crüe-like ode to bisexuality (“A.C.D.C.”) and a tune that mentions latex and rough sex in the first two lines (the cigarette-soaked, feedback-laden “Fetish”). But Jett’s brazen pillow talk would sound like a cheap ploy for attention if it weren’t backed by equally bold music: hot-shit skate-punk, C. Lo-era grunge and even vulnerable, PJ Harvey-esque sculpting. This variety saves Sinner from its many clunky hard-rock songs, the gigantic choruses and hell-bent-for-leather riffs of which can’t make up for their ultimately generic tone. (BLACKHEART) Annie Zaleski