“I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll“ (28) is a song written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker and was originally recorded and released by Arrows in 1975 on Rak Records, with Merrill on lead vocals and guitar and Mickie Most producing. Merrill wrote both the music and lyrics but gave a co-writer credit to Hooker as part of settling a debt. In an interview with Songfacts, Merrill said he wrote the song as “a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’. This version was first released as a B-side, but was soon re-recorded and flipped to A-side status on a subsequent pressing of the record. Arrows performed the song in 1975 on the Muriel Young produced show 45, after which Young offered Arrows a weekly UK television series, Arrows, which was broadcast on ITV starting in March 1976
Joan Jett saw the Arrows perform “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” on their weekly UK television series while she was touring England in 1976. She first recorded the song in 1979 with two of the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook. This first version was released on vinyl in 1979 on Vertigo records as a B-side to “You Don’t Own Me”. In 1981, Jett re-recorded the song, this time with her band, the Blackhearts. This recording became a U.S. Billboard number-one single for seven weeks, being the only one for the band. The music video received heavy play by the fledgling MTV network. It featured Jett and the Blackhearts traveling to a small, dingy bar and then exciting the drunken crowd by performing the song and yelling out its chorus. A snippet of Jett’s 1981 hit “Bad Reputation” can be heard at the beginning of the video. The video was originally in color, but it was converted to black and white because Jett hated the look of her red leather jumpsuit in colour.
“I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” is the fourth European single from American singer Britney Spears’ third studio album, Britney (2001), released in May 2002. The song was used in her 2002 film Crossroads, in which Spears’ character Lucy performs it in a karaoke bar. Spears said of the song, “They asked me to sing karaoke in the movie Crossroads and I’ve actually sung I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll in a lot of clubs that I’ve been to.” Spears has publicly stated that the original song is one of her favorites. She listened to the original Arrows Mickie Most-produced version just before she recorded the song, according to Jive A&R representative Steve Lunt. The scratches performed on this version were performed by Corey Chase at The Hit Factory Criteria studios in Miami. “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” charted moderately upon release, reaching the top twenty in most regions. The song was moderately successful in the UK, where it peaked at number 13.
In December 2019, English blogger LadBaby released a comedy version of the song with a sausage roll theme as a charity single whose profits went to The Trussell Trust. The single’s cover is based on Abbey Road‘s cover. The song peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart and in Scotland.
