Published on Aug 15, 1997
As hard as I try, I just don’t quite get The Ramones.
Oh, sure, I love some of their songs. That’s what possessed me
to pick up their 1988 best-of
Ramones Mania in the first place. There are moments where
Joey and the boys are miles above their competition.
But unlike other punk bands from the same time frame (Sex
Pistols, Black Flag, etc.), with The Ramones, I guess you really
had to be there. The hits are still incredible, but at times the
disc sounds forced and aged.
From the moment they “one-two-three-four”ed onto the scene in
1974, The Ramones became the godfathers of American punk – but I
think this was the farthest thing from their minds. All these guys
wanted to do was to play rock ‘n’ roll the only way they knew how –
fast, loud and truthful. There is still nothing more exciting than
hearing the first chorus of “Hey, ho – let’s go” on “Blitzkrieg
Bop,” though I now prefer Die Toten Hosen’s cover of the song. For
132 seconds, time stands still, and the fury of the instruments is
a glorious noise erupting from your speakers.
Early on, you also saw this was a band who didn’t take
themselves seriously. Anyone who took the lyrics to “Beat On The
Brat” seriously needed their head examined; this wasn’t a serious
call to “beat on the brat with a baseball bat.” And if you needed a
sign as to how “seriously” the band took themselves, just turn to
the tracks from the Phil Spector-produced
End Of The Century (the best example here is “Do You
Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio”). True punks would have thrown
Spector into their amplifiers; The Ramones allowed him to utilize
his “Wall Of Sound” to distort theirs. My opinion: it was nice, but
it wasn’t The Ramones.
Okay, enough babbling about the history of the band – you wanted
a review, and you’re gonna get a review. The tracks that stand out
on
Ramones Mania are, more often than not, the ones that are
occasionally heard on the radio. “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Blitzkrieg
Bop”… the ones that have been burned into our brains. Two
exceptions: “Cretin Hop” (originally from
Rocket To Russia) and a damn-near-perfect cover of the ’60s
classic “Needles And Pins.” While Joey Ramone’s vocals show their
limits on this one (and I don’t think he’s ever pretended to be a
good singer), he does an admirable job on the song. Another cover,
“Indian Giver,” is a flop from note one.
The problem with the disc is that The Ramones are best if taken
in small dosages. This two-record slugfest ends up clocking in at
just over 50 minutes – and with 30 songs on it, no less. Still,
there are times that one three-minute song seems to last hours.
Case in point: “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” off the Jean
Beauvoir-produced
Animal Boy. Cripes, if the whole album is like that one
song, then I don’t think it’s worth my time checking it out. And if
that’s Joey grunting out the vocals, then he needs to get back to
the “New Yawk” style of singing he did so well.
Other cuts on the album hold up okay on their own, like “We’re A
Happy Family,” “Teenage Lobotomy” and “Pinhead” – but the angst of
a disco-infected ’70s world doesn’t hold the piss and vinegar
today. “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School” may have been fresh then, but
it’s so much fodder today. (The Ramones seemed to recognize this
fact, recently calling it a career, albeit an album or two too
late.) Still others, like “The KKK Took My Baby Away,” were silly
then, and they’re pointless now.
And it’s not that the stuff sucks. “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg” is
actually a very well-written political criticism of then-president
Reagan. Also working for the band’s behalf is they’ve often been
teamed up with excellent producers (Tommy Erdelyi, Spector, Ed
Stasium) who knew how to use the studio to the band’s benefit. The
drums on “I Wanna Be Sedated” are incredibly crisp, as is the
guitar work.
It is an interesting picture of punk rock in its early stage
through the time period where “punk” was a four-letter word. And
with the emergence of bands like Green Day who owe their present
successes to bands like The Ramones, I think there will always be
interest in the band. So,
Ramones Mania turns out to be a good starting point for
people who are interested in seeing what the early days of punk
sounded like – bad pictures and all.