Music News: Lilith Fair Returns, The Runaways Movie, Joan Jett Greatest Hits

Dakota Fanning singing "Cherry Bomb" from the movie, "The Runaways."

This look at music news has a definite female cast. First off, Lilith Fair returns in 2010, after an absence of about a decade. As with the original Lilith Fair, Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan will headline every show, with a rotating cast of 11 other performers at each concert.

The lineup includes from veterans of the first Lilith Fair tours (Suzanne Vega) and some newer acts (Sara Bareilles, Zee Avi, and Kelly Clarkson). I'll definitely try to catch Lilith Fair's New York City show, and maybe one or two others, depending on dates and lineups.

The long-awaited movie about The Runaways, the pioneering all-female rock band, has been out for more than a week, and seems to be doing OK at the box office. It's made about $1.5 million - not bad considering it's only playing on about 300 screens - and since it only cost $10 million to make, it's got a better return on its money than a lot of much bigger films.

"The Runaways" has a 64% score on RottenTomatoes.com, with the consensus calling the film "as electric as the band's music, largely thanks to strong performances from Michael Shannon, Dakota Fanning, and Kristen Stewart." You can learn more about the Runaways movie at its Web site, Twitter page, MySpace page, and Web site. I'll have more to say about The Runaways and the movie in a later post.

The movie has as executive producer one Joan Jett, the most successful Runaways alumna. Not coincidentally, there's a new remastered Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Greatest Hits package just out. It's a two-disc set, but only seems to have 21 songs on it.

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Greatest Hits includes an unreleased track, and there are a couple of tunes by The Runaways on it (though I'm not sure whether these are by that group or remakes by JJ & the Blackhearts).

From the reviews I've read online, the CD set doesn't include much in the way of liner notes, although a lot of this kind of material can be found online at www.greatesthits.joanjett.com, along with background on each song and videos for many of them.