What George says. Nostalgia shouldn't get us carried away, listening to the first two Runaways albums is like watching a bad B or C movie. Cherie couldn't sing and had a nasal and shrill tone to her voice, what little warmth there sometimes was in the vocals generally came from Joan Jett (to this day not a very good singer herself), Joan looked sulky amd played workmanlike rhythm guitar with none of Keith Richards' grace, Sandy was a competent drummer, but totally stiff and leaden, Jackie played bass like you play bass when the instrument has been thrusted on you for only a little while and Lita ripped off every hard rock lick she had ever heard before with no taste or measure, she should be blamed for inventing shredding really!
That extended solo of her on the Queens of Noise album is like a hard rock guitar solo must sound to people who don't like hard rock guitar solos or hard rock, period. Seemingly, she didn't like it herself, she certainly moans a lot during it.
Had the Runaways been guys, they would have never seen the inside of a recording studio with their chops and talent, even the first Kiss album was more musical. If you take, say, the first Ramones album or the early Dictators stuff, the first Starz album or the first and only album of those other Kim Fowley protegees The Hollywood Stars (why hasn't that been released on CD yet, it's a glam/AOR classic?),
all of which came out pretty much at the same time as the Runaways debut, then there is just no comparison of the at best charmingly pedestrian rock of the Runaways to those other bands.
That said, I'll watch the movie and do give my Runaways CDs a spin once in a while, they are period pieces and draw a smile on my face. But they wouldn't be among my lonely desert island discs. To those other bands, The Runaways were what The Shangrilas were to The Supremes.
Uwe
