Released June 1, 1976 Length 34:02 Producer Kim Fowley | Genre Hard rock, punk rock Label Mercury | |
Recorded Fidelity Recorders in Studio City and Criterion Studios in Hollywood, California, 1976 | ||
The Runaways is the debut album by the American all-female rock band The Runaways, released in 1976.
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Website AllMusic has praised the record (especially band members Cherie Currie, Joan Jett and Lita Ford), comparing the band's music to material by Led Zeppelin and The Stooges.
According to multiple sources including Cherie Currie (in her memoir Neon Angel), the liner notes of the Raven Records release of The Runaways, and Jackie Fox herself, bassist Nigel Harrison played bass on the first album, due to manager Kim Fowley refusing to let Fox play on the record.
The documentary film Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways states that the album's first track "Cherry Bomb" was written ad hoc during the audition of lead singer Cherie Currie and the title is a play on the pronunciation of Currie's first name. Currie was told to prepare a Suzi Quatro song for the audition; she picked "Fever", a song the band did not know how to play. Instead, Joan Jett and Kim Fowley came up with the song and had Currie sing it for her audition.
In 2009, "Cherry Bomb" was named the 52nd-best hard rock song of all time by VH1. A cover of "Cherry Bomb" is featured in the music video game Rock Band as a downloadable single track. The song also featured in the movies Dazed and Confused, RV, Cherrybomb, The Runaways, and Guardians of the Galaxy, and is played in the opening scene of Margaret Cho's stand-up comedy DVD "I'm the One That I Want".
"You Drive Me Wild" is featured in the 2010 film about the band. Actress Dakota Fanning covers "Cherry Bomb" as well as "Dead End Justice" with Kristen Stewart, as they portray Cherie Currie and Joan Jett respectively.