I am sure that I am not alone when I say that I love "I Love Rock'n Roll," the song popularized by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, who released it from the album of the same name in 1981. The hugely successful record went to number one on the Billboard singles chart and #2 on the Billboard albums chart.

Distingushed by its irrisistable handclap and beat and killer guitar lick, "I Love Rock'n Roll"'s writing and first recording is often mistakenly credited to Jett. But it was Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker of the Mickie Most produced, British based group The Arrows who wrote the song and first recorded it six years earlier in 1975 (originally as a B-side on RAK Records). Their version is below in a clip from their weekly Granada Television program The Arrows Show.

I am curious to know which version people think is better, so if you have a moment, please write which version you prefer in the comments below. Note that songwriter Alan Merrill of The Arrows is an American who moved to London, hence the original line he wrote is "put another dime," whereas if he had been British born, it probably would have been something like "Put another 10 pence in the jukebox baby."

Over the years "I Love Rock'n Roll" has been covered by many artists. Britney Spears covered the song for the 2002 movie Crossroads (movie clip below), and it has been used in many other movies too, including the 2006 film The Covenant, which featured the Joan Jett version in a bar with jukebox scene.

And in 1994 it was featured in the movie Wayne's World 2 when a new video version (also below) was made by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. A popular song at karaoke nights and drunken singalongs, not surprisingly, "I Love Rock'n Roll" is regularly the tryout song used by many aspiring American Idol contenders, as witnessed in the entertaining video collage immediately below of the best of the worst contestants of American Idol singing "I Love Rock'n Roll."