HEY! HO! LET'S POLL: Ramones Memorial Poll nomination, discussion and voting thread for glue sniffing, headbanging, brat-beating and howling at the moon - voting closed

http://pleasekillme.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ramones-1976.jpg

It was suggested that this be moved up the poll list in memory of Tommy, so in the absence of objection or other pending poll, here we go. It also marks this recent achievement: Their first album was just finally certified gold in June.

Poll format will follow normal rules, except I'm going to allow up to 25 songs rather than 20, mostly out of selfish fear that I'll have to cut too many things I love. All songs #21-25 will be worth 10 points each.

Because of vacation plans this month (mine if not yours), we'll have a longish voting period. All ballots should be sent to blitzkriegcop AT gmail by the end of the day on Tuesday, August 19th.

SIDE POLLS
In addition to the 25 tracks, you can vote for:
-- Your 5 favorite Ramones albums, in ranked order
-- Your 5 favorite Ramones, in ranked order (eligible Ramones include Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy, Marky, Richie, C.J. and Elvis. Write-in votes possible for Danny Fields and Arturo Vega.)
-- Your 1 favorite Ramones heroine (candidates include but are not limited to Jackie, Judy, Sheena, Suzy, Ramona and PJ Soles)

SPECIAL PLEA
I expect the first three albums to dominate here, and I understand that, but if you have not spent time with everything at least up through Animal Boy, I highly recommend it. There are great tracks throughout. (Including the slow-ish ones, as polled here: Ramones Ballad poll)

To get thing started, I love this from the Rocket to Russia wikipedia page:

"We're a Happy Family" is a caricature of the conditions which 20th century middle-class American families lived in. The song's lyrics depict a dysfunctional family where the father is a lying homosexual, the mother is addicted to prescription drugs, the infant has chills. The writing also tells of how the family are friends with the President of the United States and the Pope, and indicate that the family sells "dope," which is slang for marijuana.[11]

There are totally great tracks throughout the catalog. Would be a shame if Poison Heart didn't make at least the top 5.

i will probably be the only person that votes for multiple tracks from Adios Amigos. strong career ender imo.

This might be only the second or third poll where I'll do some listening. (There was at least one in there where I did that...can't remember which one.) Even the large Classic Rock ballot, I just sat down and wrote out my list of 100 from what I already love. But with the Ramones, I know their albums really well through Subterranean Jungle, only somewhat for the next couple, and not at all for the last few. And I'm interested enough to give that stuff a try.

Halfway to Sanity was the last album I actually bought, except for the covers record. I want to listen to the later ones, too.

Speaking of Subterranean Jungle, I will definitely be voting for "Outsider" -- the most personal thing Dee Dee ever wrote, imo.

I've never heard Adios Amigos, but looking at the wiki, still SO MANY Dee Dee writing credits.

"Outsider"'s great--my favourite song from an underrated album.

For your consideration: Johnny rates the Ramones catalog. (Also for your consideration: Johnny's all-time top 10 in categories including punk bands, Republicans, Elvis films and life.)

Tipsy-should there be a sub-poll for favorite Ramones cover? Just thought of that when you were mentioning their later work-I adore Acid Eaters.

Sure -- you can vote for 5 favorite covers. (NB: "Chinese Rock" does not count as a cover.)

I've never heard Adios Amigos, but looking at the wiki, still SO MANY Dee Dee writing credits.

― how's life, Sunday, August 3, 2014 10:11 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah! "Cretin Family" definitely a personal favorite.

we can still have covers in our main ballot, right?

Yup. Anything they recorded is fair game. Good chance "Baby I Love You" will make mine.

that johnny ranking of albums is pretty otm, i'd lower halfway to sanity's grade and raise subterranean jungle's slightly and give the debut an A+ but he slots them right.

I like "Pleasant Dreams" a lot more than he does, but I'm more of a pop guy than Johnny. Plus I know that was a bad personal period for the band -- Johnny "stole" Joey's girl, Marky/Dee Dee on heroin, etc. I still like the record.

I thought his appraisals were unusually fair, too, although the very thing he doesn't have much use for on Pleasant Dreams--that it's a pop album--is what I like about it. (As opposed to the hardcore-sounding stuff on Too Tough to Die, which I don't like.)

His baseball lists are excellent. Projecting from his musical tastes, never would have guessed he'd have Maddux #1 for the '90s--the professorial pitcher in the midst of all those guys hitting 500-ft. home runs. Punks dig the professors.

yeah i'm a big fan of Pleasant Dreams

It's probably hard to like an album where another guy in the band casts you as the KKK.

Yeah I didn't know the backstory of that song for years. Respect to Johnny for going ahead and recording it and playing it in concert anyway.

voted!

I've had a number of ballots in later the same day, but I don't think even I've had one in that fast. Very apropos for a Ramones poll.

yeah all you simps going on about the ballads resulted in me ranking johnny over joey, i hope you're happy w/ yourselves. also it's alive (which is easily easily my first choice for how i consume ramones) isn't on spotify which probably means it's out of print which sucks.

It's Alive is my #1 album easy.

fuck i forgot to put it on my albums ballot, um change my #1 to it's alive and bump everything else down

You got it.

i will probably be the only person that votes for multiple tracks from Adios Amigos. strong career ender imo.

― some dude, Sunday, August 3, 2014 10:00 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's a fine record. One track will be high up on my ballot, and I have a second in mind that might sneak in.

can I just

The Ramones' willingness to do certain things poll

Original 45 art

http://www.ldwt.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ramones_Blitzkreig-Bop_Design-by-John-Holmstrom-of-Punk-magazine.jpg

Asking price for that on Discogs is $100+, so it's probably worth half (which would match the record guide value). I've got a "Do You Wanna Dance"/"Babysitter" original picture sleeve, though I bought it a few years after the fact. "Babysitter"'s excellent, so it was actually worth having at one time, but eventually it turned up on a compilation or as an extra track on Rocket to Russia.

yeah Babysitter is great, I first heard it on that "All The Stuff And More Vol. 1" CD, which also has "I Can't Be" and some other early demos

Weird seeing Dee Dee on the left and Johnny on the right on that sleeve

For your voting consideration: the best song Richie Ramone ever wrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBFdvcF7auY

Speaking of that album, was Johnny already hard right when they recorded Bonzo Goes to Bitburg?

I had this song stuck in my head yesterday. Don't know how many other votes it'll get besides mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eaSRJgIGUI

Yes. Apparently he didn't know the real title at the time (ie not "My brain is hanging upside down") xpost

This is a jam too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x92vv8IDCyM

I got Animal Boy and Brain Drain before I had heard any of the early stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g3e8XwVIYc

Brain Drain takes a lot of unfair shit. It's far from being the band's worst album.

Gary Mudbone Cooper from Pfunk/Sly Fox was a production assistant on Brain Drain. Weird.

I don't know how it'll hold up--I remember it had a funny parody video--but my favourite Animal Boy song other than "Bonzo" was "Something to Believe In."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VV5wFBtC_o

Misheard lyrics from the last one that I guess I've had wrong for the last 25 years or so:

You're never happy, a hypochondriac
as
You're never happy, a hot-dog-hungry act

xps

so what do folks think the worst album is? I'm almost totally unfamiliar with everything after TTTD

Something To Believe in is great. I remember though, getting the album when I was a kid and I had heard all this stuff about the Ramones and how they're the fathers of punk rock and all this shit, and then there are all these synths and bells and shit. I'm like "what is this, Bruce Springsteen?" But I learned to love it pretty quickly. The video is great.

I had to put together a video for one of my editing classes when I went back to school about a topic with an "expert," so I just got my brother to talk about his golf swing. It was a really boring, low-key video until it ended abruptly and "Wart Hog" played over the closing credits. Will be voting for that track for sure—probably my favorite Dee Dee vocal.

xps: I've never really glommed onto Halfway to Sanity, the album in between Animal Boy and Brain Drain. The only track I dig from that one is I Wanna Live.

(which is like, a top ten favorite for me)

Yeah apart from "I Wanna Live" and "Bye Bye Baby," I remember nothing off Halfway to Sanity. At the time it felt like a real end-of-the-road album.

And I love "Something to Believe In" too. As potentially cheeseball as it is, it's pretty open-eyed: "I don't know where to start and I don't know where to begin."

I could submit a poll, but it would probably only consist of songs from the first three records.

do it!

I'll vote! Hopefully I can whip a ballot up tomorrow.

yeah, id need abt 3 months for this...

i would just like to state for the record that my mom's least fave track of the later years was "She's a Sensation"

I went to check something about "I Want You Around" before voting, I had completely forgotten it was on End of the Century

? It is not on End of the Century

Looked too quickly: it's on the expanded CD version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_the_Century

A good thing for people to do on a Friday night would be to listen to a lot of Ramones and rank their ballots.

Don't forget Loudmouth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoOWot3efxY

oh I won't

"Cabbies on Crack," from Mondo Bizarro, is one of the better late-period tracks, I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACLBLLV3Hc4

haha, I just realized it was a top 25 after agonizing over my top 20.

voted!

Your 5 favorite Ramones, in ranked order

Uncle Floyd?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LSN18-nWT6c/UIlUAuK2XwI/AAAAAAAADao/A-59bIftNvY/s1600/Ramones-Uncle-Floyd.jpg

Does this count as a cover?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqhpTjP36HM

Did you get more ballots over the weekend?

I just voted!

I listened to the first 6 albums having only been familiar with the hits. I originally planned to listen to the whole lot but I ran out of steam lol.

finally, happily doing the listening to figure out my ballot, you can count on me

ok I better do this soon

Well, we're into double digits but it will be a low turnout poll -- so get those ballots in! Your vote could make the difference!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmCtzatHXvk

more fun with wikipedia

Music[edit]
Like almost all Ramones songs, the time signature is 4/4. It alternates two verses with a chorus; the second chorus is followed by a bridge, after which the first verse and the chorus are repeated with a change of key.

The results thread should be titled "Have The Rolling Stones Killed"

argh gimme a couple of hours

SENT!

Possibly covered earlier, but--are you sending confirmation emails, tipsy?

I kinda can't bring myself to compose a ballot even though I love them so much because a) I kinda wanna rank everything from the first four records equally and b) I can't really bring myself to listen to the late 80s stuff

c'mon just bite the bullet and rank the early stuff.

OK, sent!

ok fine I voted

http://sp9.fotolog.com/photo/41/60/61/ramonesmania/1137371420_f.jpg

VOTED

did no relistening at all as I was going to Ramones shows before most of you were lobotomized

Possibly covered earlier, but--are you sending confirmation emails, tipsy?

Yep. Just caught up on the latest batch, so if you've sent a ballot and not gotten a response, let me know.

been mostly listening to the original albums and sporadically dipping into the bonus tracks on the reissues but there's some interesting stuff there. there are demos on the deluxe Subterranean Jungle that sound so much better than anything on the overproduced proper album, great otherwise unreleased song called "No One To Blame," the closest thing a Ramones recording ever got to the kind of flat '80s garage band production that almost every Ramones-influenced band has recorded with.

Just voted.

finishing my ballot, just read it aloud to my wife because i just love their song titles so much

Voted.

Sent!

Is voting closed on this?

Yes, but ... If anything shows up by tonight it will still be counted.

i like the dee dee king album a lot. if it were a proper ramones album it should come in just behind pleasant dreams. did debbie harry guest vocal on any other ramones record?

Voted late, but still voted. <crosses fingers>

XP Debbie Harry sings on "Go Li'l Camaro Go" on Halfway To Sanity.

All right, ended up with 24 votes. Tallying now. Will try to get results started over the weekend.

cool!

very upset with myself for forgetting to vote for "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)"

I fit that in near the bottom of my ballot.

I had only one late-career track on mine, bcz I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8301/7884894328_d95d1f4a41_z.jpg

"Pet Sematary"'s great--right up there with the Beatles "I'm So Tired" or the Replacements' "Rock 'n' Roll Ghost" in the not-sure-I-want-to-do-this-anymore genre (probably many other examples).

There's an interview with Marky where he talks about how Dee Dee wrote Pet Sematary in 40 minutes while they were having dinner at Stephen King's house. I guess Dee Dee walked away from the table while the rest of them were sitting there hanging out with Stephen King, and when he came back he had the song.

OK, tallying is complete. Will try to get started with the side polls tomorrow, followed by two days of tracks results.

http://www.spin.com/articles/morrissey-ramones-greatest-hits-album-curating-cover/

He shoulda waited for the poll results.