Joan Jett Opens the Vault for ‘I Love Rock ’N Roll’ at 45

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts are extending the 45th-anniversary celebration of I Love Rock ’N Roll with a collection built around recordings that spent decades out of circulation. I Love Rock ’N Roll + The Shadow Album is scheduled for December 11 as a two-LP or two-CD set, pairing the familiar studio album with a newly restored 1980 session.

The rehearsal-room energy before the breakthrough

The newly uncovered material was recorded at ODO Studios in New York after the band had already spent more than a year playing the songs live. According to the announcement, the musicians completed the session in roughly an hour, preserving early versions of tracks that would later define the album, including “I Love Rock ’N Roll,” “Crimson and Clover,” “Love Is Pain” and “Victim of Circumstance.”

The tapes were believed lost before being rediscovered and restored. Their appeal is not simply archival: they document the Blackhearts while the group’s sound was still being shaped through repeated live performance. Jett described the recordings as a snapshot of the band putting everything it had into songs it believed in, long before anyone could know how durable those songs would become.

A Record Store Day preview arrives first

Listeners will get an earlier route into the archive on November 27. The Shadow Album is listed as a standalone Record Store Day Black Friday vinyl release in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, with a live version of “Black Leather” designated as an exclusive bonus track.

The larger December package will feature artwork by Shepard Fairey, the artist and Obey founder. The anniversary campaign also includes apparel and a beer collaboration, with additional events and partnerships still to be announced.

The project follows a separate 45th-anniversary reissue of the original album through Blackheart Records, but the restored session gives this later release a different purpose. Instead of another remaster alone, it offers a working document of a band finding the direct, forceful sound that would carry the title track to a seven-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100 and turn the album into a rock staple.