Joan Jett
OK, so maybe all three of the titles I'm about to discuss aren't from the past. Only Matthew Sweet's still-brilliant breakthrough, Girlfriend, just reissued in a remastered, bonus-stuffed 2xCD set, fits
the bill. Still, the two that are recent recordings - Cheap Trick's Rockford and Joan Jett and the
Blackhearts' Sinner - are from rockers who helped set the foundation for post-Beatles power-pop in the '70s and early '80s. And they make more sense grouped with Sweet's finest hour than with the discs I'll touch on in the second half of this round-up (from Phoenix, Crash Kelly and Elefant).

Jett's comeback, technically her first stateside assortment of (relatively) new material since 1994's
Pure and Simple, is a fierce reminder of her potency as a no-frills rock 'n' roller and her unique way with a hook. It's a shame, really, that apart from the Donnas and maybe Morningwood and the Sounds, there's really no women in rock taking after the former Runaway these days. Here's hoping her appearances on this year's Warped Tour (July 7 in Pomona, July 12 at Dodger Stadium) will lead some teenage girls who've had little other than Juliette Lewis for inspiration to form punchy little bands of their own.

Unless you're a JJ freak who hunts down everything she puts out worldwide - I think we can safely assume that's no one reading this - Sinner will seem fully fresh. Ten of its 14 tracks come from 2004's Japanese-only disc Naked, while the weaker "Fetish" comes from a 1999 collection of the same name. Yet with only a few exceptions (like the one I just named) the material here is timeless enough to have come from any of Jett's best '80s albums. The key difference between then and now, really, is her willingness to explore issues of sexual orientation (now that she's much more out of the closet herself), privacy (something she prizes) and politics (little surprise to hear her skewering Bush on the soundbite-riddled "Riddles").

These days her covers veer more toward (the '70s glam band) Sweet's overtly gender-bending "A.C.D.C." than Tommy James' more innocent "Crimson and Clover," but the instant fun of her approach hasn't been dulled by time. If anything, it's been improved by her absence. There's something about how that makes the heart grow fonder, yes?

Ben Wener/OC Register