The Ramones : Classic Or Dud

I don't hate the Ramones. I think I just like them best in small doses. Classic radio should play them a bit more. I never hear them played.

Those first three albums ALWAYS SOUND AMAZING. Doesn't matter where you are, what you're doing, or how you feel. They fucking rule. How many albums in rock history can you say that about?

Bought the DVD but haven't had time to watch...can't wait!

Great songwriters. A pity all of the arrangements on those first albums sound exactly the same though.

The Ramones are one of those "I can't trust the opinions of someone who doesn't like them" bands.

I like all their albums, even 'Halfway to Sanity' (search: "Go L'il Camaro Go"), and they def. had a quality surge at the end.

The Rainbow performance is so nostalgic on the DVD. I wasn't there, but it captures exactly how I remember how people looked in '77: the full cliche punk look, people wearing school ties and having the non-punk shortened fringe look, people with 70s long hair attending punk gigs.

And Joey look so vulnerable when he punches the air, moves around, or even just having trouble keeping up with the music at some points.

How can a guy calling himself "Nicky Lo-Fi" not dig the Ramones 200%?

Why don't "classic rock" stations ever play the Ramones? God knows they're old and classic enough. Q-104.3 in the NJ/NYC area still plays the same friggin Pink Floyd and Eagles crap they've been playing the past 15 years. No wonder radio's a rotting corpse.

unrelated, I just hacked my iPod Touch to get internet radio.

love

I'm going to have to give "It's Alive" another listen because frankly I don't understand all the love for it here (compared to their studio stuff, that is).

yeah I've never heard it, was surprised by all the praise it gets on this thread.

I have been in a serious Ramones-hole for the last few days though, everything up through Subterannean Jungle.

Timely thread - I've been listening to the first 2 albums a lot lately. Need to get Rocket to Russia. You always think that you know what the Ramones sound like - listening for the few well-known elements of their sound - but they can still surprise after so many listens. I guess it's fair to call them minimalists, but only if one keeps in mind that minimalism can be liberating as well as restricting. A monolithic focus can produce something that dwarfs the scale of something that tries to do too much. If the Beatles and their followers had taught rock to be sophisticated (gradually forsaking the innocent rush of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for the irony and multiplicity of the White Album), the Ramones went backward (to the '50s rockers) in order to move forward, though preserving the irony.

I don't know what's wrong with me I've been in a real "New York state of mind" recently - I went from that Dion album to a VU/Lou Reed binge to the Ramones

people that don't understand the ramones don't understand that they were an art band.

"I'm going to have to give "It's Alive" another listen because frankly I don't understand all the love for it here (compared to their studio stuff, that is)."

It's a concentrated shot of the original material, which was already ultra-concentrated: Quadruple strength, with additional live-sound roughage.

The Ramones are one of those "I can't trust the opinions of someone who doesn't like them" bands.

― Colonel Poo, Friday, October 26, 2007 6:00 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest

OTM

They just seem so eminently likable, like all their famous songs are so hummable and I love Joey's Ronnie Spector schtick.

It's Alive = 28 songs, less than 56 minutes. More like 54: something. Also fun: the sprawling two-CD It's Alive video collection includes film of half the album's tracks. Great!

http://www.geocities.com/geeesevvon/ramones/pics/joey-and-spaceman.jpg

Eminently likeable? Not sure about Johnny...And Dee Dee's books are a bit psychotic in places.

band and their material /= individual bandmembers

Classic band - verging on genius for first few albums. But ultimately I think of them as almost tragic - that Ramones documentary was so sad.

Best bonus track = S.L.U.G

New book by Joey's brother Mitchell, aka Mickey Leigh.

Which is kinda not that well-written.

That "Weird Tales" anthology.

The book you get with it.

It's worth it.

I only really like the first album.

rocket to russia is my fave, the first four are all great tho

This is fantastic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1QG8MJ7jv4

This is a segment with interview, live footage and sometimes hilarious fan reactions to a Ramones show in Minneapolis in 1978. I like to imagine that all the '80s hardcore kids were at this show, or at least caught this video on their PBS affiliate.

Was inspired by this thread to listen to some of The Ramones first album. "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" sounds so sincere with its 50s pop sound. I'm surprised an indie film or a TV commercial haven't used it yet.

(xpost) That vid is great, thanks for linking! I grew up in the Twin Cities, but didn't live here '76 - '78. I had forgotten they went from playing at a dive bar in St. Paul in the summer of '77, to a large theater in January of the following year. With The Runaways!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nycdreamin/4310636885/

"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" sounds so sincere with its 50s pop sound. I'm surprised an indie film or a TV commercial haven't used it yet.

It actually got an airing in the late 90s indie flick Whatever, but only me and maybe five other people remember the film. Good soundtrack tho, Pretenders, Motorhead, The Jam...

Almost can't be bothered to contribute, as they were/are so obviously classic .

Agreed,though ,they never matched the first three in the studio. My introduction to them was It's Alive. I bought that, I only had my paper round money and it seemed such great value for money back then.
Sadly, I can't even recall the name of their last 16 albums. For me, they tailed off massively around the only time I ever saw them live in 85 at teh Lyceum (Too Tough to Die)

amazing clip

"they're not the most talented, but they're the most fun" !!! lol

funny revive, just tonight a guy 10 years older than me told me that he discovered the ramones in '78, his senior year of high school, and it sort of changed the world for him. i had the same experience about 4 or 5 years later in middle school.

'i remember you' is just about the perfect pop song, i've realized.

Not listening to them for a while, then going into overdrive listening to the first four I came across the notion, that I really needed all of the Ramones studio albums. I've been picking them up one after another over the past few months and some of the later ones like Brain Drain and Acid Eaters which I haven't heard since they were new, while not sonically touching those early works are still pretty damn good for what they are and at points great. I never had Mondo Bizarro or Adios Amigo, but I will at some point in the next few months. I still need to get Animal Boy, which is out of print like some of the later 80s stuff currently is at this point. But on the rest, I say they were more consistent than perhaps given credit.

Animal Boy is pretty horrid, apart from Bonzo Goes to Bitburg.

The "Weird Tales of the Ramone" set is very worth it.

Disc 1 represents the first four albums.

Discs 2 and 3 represent all the others with at least four tracks off each, enough to show there wasn't a massive slacking off of quality anywhere.

Disc 4 is a DVD of mainly later period stuff, but then again that wouldn't get collected any place else really.

And the booklet is excellent, different cartoonists illustrate how they were, episodes from their history (check the dirctor's audio track from the R&R High school DVD for sources), and general fan-style nuttiness.

I got one cheap in an HMV sale around 8 years ago, glad I didn't plump for the 2CD "anthology"...

I must admit I prefer the Ramones' version of "Baby I Love You" to the original.

Alice (now 11), as regular readers know, her first favourite band was the Ramones..

cf: Parents forbidding music

.. anyway, not that long ago we were in a shoe shop and "Baby I love you" came on, she'd not heard it before.

"That's the Ramones!" I say.

"Really?"

"Yep. That was their biggest hit."

"Oh! Was that because....." she begins.

"what, because it sounds nothing like their other stuff?"

"Yeah"

"Yup"

i had no idea it was a hit, let alone their biggest.

No 8 in 1980. Made it to Top of the Pops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4H9yZBjgSI

It's the easiest Ramones single to find on 7" in the UK, so they must've sold a lot of them.

I agree with the abundant praise for It's Alive on this thread. and for any doubters - here's the 26 minute edit of the show from the dvd; one of the greatest half hours of rock concert footage ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imf25Squ8ro

has anyone read johnny's book?

A young music critic at the time speaks:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/c12.0.403.403/p403x403/408392_4798168918970_1487741182_n.jpg

I assume that was the Morrissey letter that was going around Facebook earlier, but I'm not seeing anything linked to. Is that my computer?

It is -- odd, working for me here.

would love to know what lp this young'un won.

I have this impression that Morrissey only likes 12 bands and that that has never changed (Patti Smith, the Dolls, T. Rex, Sparks, Bowie eh who cares who the others are)