{"id":298241,"date":"2025-10-12T21:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T21:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298241\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T21:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T21:20:12","slug":"how-joan-jett-ripped-off-motown-the-eagles-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/298241\/","title":{"rendered":"How Joan Jett ripped off Motown, the Eagles and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sun 12 October 2025 18:30, UK <\/p>\n

Unsourced creativity isn\u2019t the only marker of artistic brilliance, and Joan Jett<\/a> alone is proof of that. Just as much a product of her influences as the authenticity that made her one of rock\u2019s most unique figures, she hasn\u2019t had to prove her originality since quite early in her career. <\/p>\n

Ideas rarely fall out of the sky, so it isn\u2019t really fair for greatness to be contingent upon such a strict standard for innovation. Take, for instance, Oasis and the Gallagher brothers\u2019 complete and utter obsession with The Beatles. You probably couldn\u2019t claim that the Mancunians had directly ripped off the Fab Four, at least any more than any other rock band of the last 60 years, but they certainly dipped their grubby mitts into the well every so often. <\/p>\n

Likewise, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts also put on their torch hats, grabbed a pickaxe and mined the archives for inspiration while conceiving their fifth studio album, Good Music. The 1986 record comprises a total of ten tracks, half of which the group leader wrote in collaboration with record producer Kenny Laguna. The highlight of this alliance, it is worth noting, was the result of the pair taking bits and pieces from songs they loved and fusing them with their own creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to say good music as opposed to hack music,\u201d Laguna told Songfacts<\/a> about the title track. \u201cThe bells are from \u2018Rag Doll\u2019 by The Four Seasons \u2014 if you listen carefully, it\u2019s the exact same part. We took a bit from \u2018Take It Easy\u2019 by the Eagles. We had The Rolling Stones, we had \u2018Bang A Gong\u2019 by T-Rex. It was just a little homage. We\u2019d take just a tiny bit \u2014 not long enough to get sued \u2014 but just little bits like the rhythms or melodies. We had \u2018Layla\u2019. if you listen carefully you can hear a little bit of \u2018Layla\u2019 in the fade. We also had \u2018Lean On Me\u2019 [by Bill Withers] in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s the Beach Boys, four of whom made an appearance on the song as well. In addition to the Blackhearts delivering their own rendition of the California group\u2019s \u2018Fun, Fun, Fun\u2019 on the record, they were blessed with backing vocals from Carl Wilson, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and Mike Love on \u2018Good Music\u2019 as well.<\/p>\n

Laguna had summoned Wilson to the studio to play the guitar on the song\u2019s second verse. As they were in the studio, Johnson joined them too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been told by their agent that if you try to get all the Beach Boys, they will not be in the same room together,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey don\u2019t even make their records in the studio together. So now we\u2019ve got two of them, then their tour manager calls me in the studio and says, \u2018Mike [Love] is feeling left out. He\u2019s wondering why you didn\u2019t invite him.\u2019 I told him the story, that I heard if I invite all of them, nobody will come.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cSo the next thing I know, all the Beach Boys are showing up. We worked on it and Bruce Johnson goes, \u2018We\u2019re going to show you how to make a Beach Boys record.\u2019 They were putting those beautiful \u2018oohs\u2019 on. I was managing Darlene Love, who never mentioned that she helped arrange \u2018Why Do Fools Fall In Love,\u2019 she sang on \u2018Fun, Fun, Fun,\u2019 sang on all those great Beach Boys records during their heyday, because she was one of Phil Spector\u2019s voices, and she would sing in Brian [Wilson]\u2019s pool.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point, Laguna even remembered Jardine accusing him and Jett of stealing the Beach Boys\u2019 sound as the one-off supergroup fine-tuned the song. \u2018Good Music\u2019 went on to peak at #83 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart when it was released as a single in 1986.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Alamy) Sun 12 October 2025 18:30, UK Unsourced creativity isn\u2019t the only marker of artistic brilliance, and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":298242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[9150,171,152001,152002,152003,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-298241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-joan-jett","11":"tag-joan-jett-and-the-blackhearts","12":"tag-motown","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115363291488362616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}