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A Beginner’s Guide to The Ramones

Saturday 17th September 2011 in Music
2 Comments.

The Ramones exploded out of New York’s CGBG’s punk scene in the mid-70s with a ground-breaking, raw sound that changed the world of popular music forever. Well, that’s enough platitudes. Simple fact, they were tighter and wrote better songs than The Sex Pistols, and were smarter than The Clash. They played for gas and beer money, squandered the rest on heroin, and amassed a total group body count that could put Norwegian black metal to shame.

In the 1980s not even Howard Stern could reconcile them. But they managed to produce some of the smartest, most misleadingly primitive, and perfectly phrased popular music of the twentieth century. The Ramones were your local watering-hole, a comforting retreat for when the rest of the world lost focus. Ignore the naysayers, they never made a bad album. Even ‘End of the Century’ was far superior to anything their peers could muster at that time. Oh, and they never sold out, so a lot of respect has to be devoted to them for that.

The heart and soul of rock-and-roll is a teenager in love and no-body said it better than The Ramones. It’s a blessing for which we should be thankful that Joey, Marky, Johnny, and Dee Dee were also adroit satirists and some of the most perceptive songwriters of their generation. Thirty years on and ‘Havana Affair’ still cuts deep into American interventionism, and no-one wrote a better song about dumb love than ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’.

Never outstaying their welcome and always leaving you wanting more, whether it be that elusive extra round of a chorus or yet another uncompromising blast of nigh-pure power chords, they always gave you impetus to reach for the repeat button: the essence of all good rock. There’s a reason why critics demur from comparing anyone to The Ramones. They are without rivals. No education in rock and roll is complete without them.

I J Scrimshire

Comments









  1. Brononymous
    September 19th, 2011 at 13:31

    Too bad all the songs sound exactly the same

  2. BB
    September 29th, 2011 at 16:43

    Firstly, I will defy that the songs sound very similar. Secondly, that doesn’t matter when all the songs are good.