The Best of the Runaways

Although the Runaways deserve all the accolades they've garnered since their 1975 inception, the band's full-lengths did come with a fair share of filler. The Best of the Runaways cherry picks a strong sequence of songs from four of the band's albums, giving equal spotlight time to Joan Jett and of course Cherie Currie who fronted opening song "Cherry Bomb" with the kind of unbridled teenage aplomb that invented bands like Bikini Kill and the Donnas. "I Love Playin' With Fire" was a less successful hit with an equally powerful prowess that further helped develop the band's tough-as-nails kind of girl-gang rock 'n’ roll — a sound so mean that it could have accompanied the 1975 cult film Switchblade Sisters. And since 1977's Waitin' for the Night was never reissued on CD, locker-busting songs like the rock-out-with-your-chalk-out "School Days" and the wildly romantic "Wait For Me" are welcomed gems here. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to get beat up by a hot stoner chick with feathered hair and bellbottoms, the punch throwing "Blackmail" may be as close as you're going to get to the real deal.