Queens of Noise | ||||
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Studio album by The Runaways | ||||
Released | January 1977 | |||
Recorded | 1976 at Brothers Studio, Santa Monica, CA | |||
Genre | Hard rock | |||
Length | 36:37 | |||
Label | Mercury | |||
Producer | Kim Fowley, Earle Mankey | |||
The Runaways chronology | ||||
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Queens of Noise is the second studio album by the American rock band The Runaways. Released in January 1977 on Mercury Records, it is fundamentally a hard rock album, although it also exhibits influences from punk rock, heavy metal, and blues rock. While the album features a range of different tempos, most of it consists of the "heavy" guitar-driven tracks that have come to be seen as The Runaways' signature sound, although it also features two noticeably softer songs that have sometimes been described as early power ballads. While stylistically similar to the band's self-titled debut album The Runaways, Queens of Noise features greater emphases on volume and musical sophistication. The album has received generally positive reviews and has remained the band's best-selling record in the United States.
After their self-titled debut album achieved some critical and popular success in the summer of 1976, The Runaways retained the same five woman line-up for Queens of Noise: Cherie Currie (lead vocals), Joan Jett (rhythm guitar and lead vocals), Lita Ford (lead guitar), Jackie Fox (bass guitar), and Sandy West (drums). According to Fox, the band was contractually obligated to produce two studio albums each year for their label (Mercury Records), which led to the eventual release of Queens of Noise in January 1977, just seven months after The Runaways went on sale. Before the recording of Queens of Noise began, the increasingly poor relationship between The Runaways and their manager, Kim Fowley, led them to arrive at the mutual decision to bring in a different day-to-day producer for the album. The man selected to both engineer and produce the album was Earle Mankey, most famous for his work with The Beach Boys, although Fowley did remain involved in its production on a periodic basis.