Ramones: It's Alive

It’s Alive

Best song: you’ll never see this one coming will you… Blitzkrieg Bop!

Worst song: one of the covers; maybe California Sun

Overall grade: 6 (at this point I can’t imagine ever giving a live album a 7, to be honest)

Well, if I’m not very much mistaken, this is my first review of a live album! Wait, no, I did ‘Ummagumma’, which is half live and half studio… so this is my first time looking at just a live album. And I can’t really think of a better one to start with: ‘It’s Alive’ is easily in my top five live albums of all time, as well as being my favourite Ramones album, because it’s as close as you can buy to the absolute essence of the Ramones, smothered as it is in accelerated riffs, random bursts of aggression and a fuzzy home-grown feel. Course, it would be far better to actually see them in concert, and if that were still possible, you can bet that I’d be there the moment ticket sales opened. Sadly, this album is the closest thing I’m ever going to have.

Most live albums work because they show a different side of the band to the studio albums. Not the case here. ‘It’s Alive’ is amazing because it amplifies every aspect of the Ramones listening experience into a barrage of great sounds that attacks you non-stop for twenty-eight songs and fifty-three minutes. The first aspect it takes to extremes is (as you might have worked out if you can do quick maths) song lengths. In direct contrast to most live albums, these songs are actually even shorter than their studio counterparts, and are basically all sped up to make room for as many songs as is humanly possible. That’s fine. Even after only three albums (this was recorded before ‘Road to Ruin’, though it was released afterwards) they already had more than enough great songs to justify this approach.

Brief interlude: four concerts were recorded and considered for a live album, and the reason this one won out over the others was because the front ten rows of seats were thrown at the stage after the concert was over. That’s clearly how you judge the success of a concert.

Other features of the band highlighted by this album include their sheer energy – a lot of these songs flow directly into one another with barely a pause for applause, and they manage to keep this up for the entire set without it noticing in their performance whatsoever – and their complete lack of taking themselves seriously; see the way Joey growls the title of each song before they start playing it, and before ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’ he even claims that it’s “for all you lonely hearts out there”. That line gets me every time.

While the setlist generally sticks to my favourites, there are of course a handful of songs that I didn’t love quite so much in their original incarnations. Without exception, though, I prefer the versions included here. The fact that the songs themselves are a bit unnecessary is cancelled out by the way the group put just as much effort into them as they do the fan favourites – it’s incredible to me how they can be so hardworking in each of their live performances and perform as many times per year as they did and still manage to reach the high standard that they did.

The big hits aren’t all collected at the tail end of the album, they’re nicely spread throughout it, meaning that even someone who doesn’t know the band’s entire output could still find something they knew every few minutes. And nothing is a significant drop in quality from its original! If I had to pick a song that doesn’t work quite as well on here… it might actually be ‘Surfin’ Bird’, because its infuriating catchiness doesn’t have quite the same effect sandwiched between so many other super-catchy songs. On the other hand, absolute highlights (aside from the obvious) are ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’, ‘Cretin Hop’, ‘Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment’ and the impossibly fast ‘We’re A Happy Family’, all of which already set themselves some pretty high standards, but only manage to improve on them in this context.

I love this album because it’s so unashamedly hedonistic and because it manages to achieve the same heights as most objectively “serious” albums just by being a head-spinningly good time. By 1979, disco was in the mainstream, post-punk and New Wave were the new musical movements, most punk bands (including the Ramones themselves) were embracing other styles of music into their work, and this was one of the last true documents of the original punk era – but what  a high for the genre to end on.

Ramones: Road to Ruin

Road to Ruin

Best song: most of them, but I’ll stick with the obvious answer of I Wanna Be Sedated

Worst song: She’s the One

Overall grade: 6

The Ramones’ fourth album is both very familiar and very new. It gets off to an unsurprising start with the fast, energetic guitar riff of ‘I Just Want To Have Something To Do’, and it’s not until Joey starts singing that you realise quite how much development there has been since the last album. With Tommy Ramone out of the drummer’s chair (replaced by some guy called Marky, who sounds pretty similar) and now behind the scenes producing, things just sound different – the melody is emphasised more, and the anger, while still ever-present, has become more subtle. It’s really working for them. They never move into any kind of sickly-sweet pop; the guitar is too animalistic for that and the vocals too hard around the edges, but every song overflows with hooks and giant sing-along choruses. And while the record as a whole still gets samey in places, when a song gets stuck in your head (and it will) you’ll know exactly which one it is.

Songs such as ‘I Don’t Want You’ prove they’re finally taking this music business thing seriously. It doesn’t have many lyrics, but the delivery is a thousand times more sincere than anything on previous records. And a couple of the songs, like ‘I Wanted Everything’, break the three minute mark! That’s how you know they mean business.

The group seem more willing to experiment with ideas now, and there’s a slight country influence on ‘Don’t Come Close’, a great song which feels like something that would be played over the closing credits of a film. The influence is there too on ‘Questioningly’, but that track is more notable for being the band’s attempt at a solemn, honest love song. It’s the biggest surprise of the album in that it’s actually very successful! The slowed-down playing doesn’t lose any of the life that the faster numbers have, and the lyrics are good even though they’re frank and not hidden behind their usual veil of humour.

Further showing how these guys are moving on is ‘I’m Against It’. It almost seems like, dare I say it, a purposeful self-parody, taking the nihilism that defines punk and using it in such an extreme way that it becomes comical. I like how they’re not afraid to laugh at themselves and that they’re not trying to distance themselves from the whole punk scene, and I like the song too, especially Joey’s super-intense growling of the lyrics.

‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ has become one of the band’s best-known songs, despite originally being released as a b-side. Again, the fact that it’s based on a true story (Joey Ramone struggling to cope with the Ramones’ frantic touring) gives it more gravity, but the subject matter never tries to overwhelm the song, which stays fun all the way through.

The downside to the band’s new maturity is that the throwaway material is much easier to spot – ‘She’s the One’ is a blatant piece of filler that would have fit in better on one of the previous records, but still would have been one of the weaker tracks. And then ‘Needles and Pins’ is an acceptable cover, but just when their own songs are getting so awesome, I’m not sure it’s really needed.

But apart from those two, there’s nothing to bring this album down, unless you’re one of those people who believes that taking the music in this direction was the Ramones ‘selling out’. It’s not. This is the exact opposite of selling out! (I’m not sure what that is, though… pretty sure ‘selling in’ is not a term) This is the band becoming more artistically creative, more willing to experiment, and if it happened to sell them a few records, well, so much the better. I can’t see why old-time fans who are devoted to the first three albums dismiss this one when it has songs like ‘Bad Brain’ on it, something which takes the best elements of the early records and makes them better, or ‘I Just Want To Have Something To Do’ which is basically just a more technically interesting version of their past stuff.

This wasn’t the first Ramones album I heard, but it was the one that made me see what all the fuss was about when it comes to them, and I still see it as their absolute high point of studio output – the moment when their punk and pop worlds collided in a glorious explosion.

Ramones: Rocket to Russia

Rocket to Russia

Best song: We’re A Happy Family

Worst song: I Don’t Care

Overall grade: 5

The Ramones release their first album for the third time, and yet if I was to listen to these albums not knowing which came first and which were just re-treading old ground, I think I’d call this one out as the best of the three. That makes sense, I suppose – if you keep practicing writing the same style of song, you’re bound to improve. There’s also arguably the biggest number of absolute classics on this album (not Blitzkrieg Bop though, sadface) which might be a coincidence or it might show that they’re getting better at judging which of their songs are likely to be popular with their fans.

The first of these future favourites is ‘Cretin Hop’, the most blatantly derivative song here. But be honest with me now – in your heart, which would you enjoy more: a rewrite of the band’s greatest song or a new song that’s kinda mediocre? After all, the Ramones are all about enjoyment. You’re not supposed to listen to them and think ‘That’s an interesting chord progression I’ve never heard before’ or ‘Wow, that lyric really makes me think!’ If you’re sitting still while you listen rather than shaking your head around like a crazy person, you’re doing it wrong. So I think ‘Cretin Hop’ is great because it gets that uncontrollable physical reaction from me right at the beginning of the album.

‘Rockaway Beach’ is the result of the little-known late 70s collaboration between the Beach Boys and the Sex Pistols. What? That never happened? Well, you could have fooled me because that’s exactly what this song is, a bunch of nice harmonies combined with super-fast loud guitars. Then there’s ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’, all power chords and that instantly recognisable singalong chorus.

The one that just edges out the best song competition is ‘We’re A Happy Family’. Although musically the Ramones are in about the same place they were two years ago, lyrically they’ve come on a lot, and this song has a great set of words to go along with it. Another punch comes in the form of the written-to-shock ‘Teenage Lobotomy’: I can’t imagine another band trying to rhyme ‘tell ‘em’ with ‘cerebellum’. That, along with the cool drum opening and the repeated yelling of ‘lobotomy!’ means the song includes everything that made early-period Ramones great.

Two cover songs make an appearance here, and one of them actually achieves classic status too. It’s obvious which one – the great version of ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’! No, I’m kidding (although that IS a good cover too), it’s ‘Surfin’ Bird’ of course. It might be the most annoying song ever written, it might be the only ever song to be based off a radio jingle rather than the other way around, and it’s definitely the perfect song for this band. It reminds me of an excitable kid: gets on your nerves, tiring to be around, yet deep down you can’t help but like it.

There’s a little bit of filler on this album, but overall less than on its predecessors, so I can listen all the way through without getting tempted to tune out. ‘I Don’t Care’ is pretty stupid – it essentially negates my earlier comment about the band getting better at writing lyrics, but it’s very short and precedes 3 awesome songs, so I’ll tolerate it. ‘I Can’t Give You Anything’ is another low point. Not awful, but it doesn’t have the attitude and energy that it should coming from these guys. But there are a couple of songs that break the super-fast, loud mould of the highlights I’ve mentioned and make it work well – specifically ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’ and ‘Ramona’, a pair of more sincere love songs that don’t come across as contrived.

The part of my brain that values originality is yelling at me to dock this album points, but there’s so many undeniably great songs here that I can’t manage it. Get this one before Leave Home and even before the debut, so long as you’ve listened to… oh, you know what I’m going to say.

Ramones: Leave Home (or 'What If The Ramones Were The Beatles?')

Leave Home

Best song: Pinhead

Worst song: Commando

Overall grade: 4

I like this album slightly less than the first one. In a perfect world, there would be a meaningful reason for this along the lines of its being less revolutionary and not changing the face of rock music, but in actual fact that’s a sidenote, and the truth is that I like this album less because it doesn’t have ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’. That song should be on all the Ramones albums. Or maybe it should just BE one of the albums. I’d definitely listen to a 30 minute version of Bop, and I’d enjoy it too.

The most important thing for getting into this album, and the next one, is acceptance of the fact that the Ramones’ best song was the first song on the first record and technically it could only go downhill from there. Lower your expectations just slightly to discover the also-great material on album number two. The more I listen to this the more I like it, and in that way a 4 seems harsh, but a 5 seems like too much, and I still consider 4 a good grade, so there.

One of my favourite tracks here is ‘You’re Gonna Kill That Girl’, often said to be a parody of the Beatles’ ‘You’re Gonna Lose That Girl’. This only adds to the fact that I see a lot of similarities between the early careers of both bands. The Ramones were angrier, but both groups were made up of four guys who wrote short catchy pop songs about random topics whose main intention was to be a good time, both had two central members who had a lot of conflict, both never intended to be particularly important or influential but were… and this got me thinking about what if there were more similarities between the two groups.

After the success of ‘Leave Home’ in 1977 the Ramones star in their first film, ‘Rocket to Russia’, a quirky comedy about the band themselves embarking on their first Russian tour but having a lot of problems with the personnel and equipment on their rocket. After their next studio effort, ‘Road to Ruin’, they work on a slightly more ambitious film, ‘End of the Century’, about a cult who are planning a mass murder for the year 1999 only to realise that the sacrificial boating shoes are being worn by Marky Ramone. Over this period the Ramones discovered a growing interest in expanding their musical vision, learnt a few more chords, and incorporated folk and soul influences on ‘Pleasant Dreams’ in 1981, which has now become the indie controversialist’s pick for the best album. This period also marked Dee Dee Ramone’s growing interest in sampling, something he had first hear while filming ‘Rocket to Russia’, a technique which he would incorporate into a number of later songs.

It wasn’t until 1982’s ‘Subterranean Jungle’ that the band truly cemented their own place in rock history by pioneering an up-and-coming musical movement of the time, hip hop. The critics loved how they used rhythm, production and the spoken word to create effects never seen before, and even bigger was in 1984 when amid the growing singles climate of synth-pop, the Ramones released the first rap concept album, ‘Too Tough to Die’. The album focuses on a group who suffer a simultaneous near-death experience while performing, but pull through, only to have these events repeat themselves later, and the cover features a painting of the band surrounded by many famous serial killers. This concept was partly inspired by the fact that the band had recently stopped touring or playing live after a few instances of deaths during their shows due to overexcitement: they wanted to protect their fans and themselves from this fate.

It’s worth noting that ‘Too Tough to Die’ singlehandedly inspired 75% of rock bands of the mid 80s to write their own concept albums. A staggering number of these concept albums, however, were about sex, and all of these were written by hair metal bands.

The Ramones push the boat out further on 1986’s sprawling double album ‘Animal Boy’, featuring a plain red cover, over thirty songs in over twenty musical styles, and provoking a debate that rages to this day about whether or not it would have been better as a single album. Things go downhill for their next and final film, ‘Halfway to Sanity’, a cheery, colour-themed singalong about patients in a mental hospital, accompanied by a maligned soundtrack album. This, the realisation that they were unlikely to make any more significant developments to music, and the growing conflict between leaders Joey and Johnny and the marginalised Dee Dee caused the Ramones to seriously discuss splitting.

On 30 January 1989, the Ramones performed their final live show on the roof of the CBGB club during recordings for ‘Mondo Bizarro’ (provisional title Poison Heart) which would become their final album. However, the album’s sessions were torturous for all involved and consequently the project was temporarily abandoned, and the group returned to the studio to record their swansong, ‘Brain Drain, the second side of which constituted ‘The Pet Sematary Medley’ of interlinked songs packed with distorted fuzz guitars and angsty lyrics and consequently is said to be one of the first grunge songs. For the cover, the band photographed themselves striding confidently over an elongated drain, seemingly unaware of the brain tissue below.

‘Mondo Bizarro’ was eventually released in 1992, although Johnny Ramone was reportedly unhappy with it and later recorded ‘Mondo Bizarro… Without Clothes’ for his own personal satisfaction.

I had way too much fun writing this.

Ramones: Ramones

Ramones

Best song: Blitzkrieg Bop of course!

Worst song: whatever. I’ll say ‘Havana Affair’ but who can really tell those middle songs apart?

Overall grade: 5

Anyone who knows even a little bit about the history of rock music has heard of the Ramones. Like them or not, they’re an essential part of the landscape. But in 1976 when they released their first album in New York, nobody bought it, except in Sweden where it reached number 48 on the charts for unknown reasons. Most of the world has the excuse that in those pre-Internet days, they had no idea it existed, but New York City residents of the time do not have an excuse. The CBGB nightclub that launched the band was right on their doorstep, and must have heard the word of mouth about the Ramones’ exciting, energetic live shows. However, most of them still didn’t buy the record, and the upshot of this is that many people went for years without ever hearing ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, which I find very sad indeed.

Luckily, this has been corrected in more recent years, and now most music fans have that song in their lives. Now, there are a lot of people who are huge Ramones fans and basically think the band could do no wrong, and I don’t count myself among them. First time I listened to them, I actually didn’t like them. But they’ve grown on me a LOT, to the point where I can honestly call myself a fan – from Joey’s first line, ‘Hey! Ho! Let’s go!’ that kicks off a whole musical movement and a fast-paced, action-packed career of tempestuous band relationships in rock history, right up to… well, it’s actually just their Seventies output I play regularly, but you get the picture. Basically, if you like the sound of a band who has no idea what they’re doing but clearly has so much fun doing it (and actually comes up with pretty good melodies) this band is for you.

I always wonder, what would have happened to rock music if the Ramones had never happened. Would music have continued getting more and more complex and inaccessible the way it was going? Would another band, playing the same ‘take an aspect of prog and do the exact opposite’ music as the Ramones? Or would another band have changed things, but in a different way, and taken music in a completely different direction? We’ll never know.

Oh, yeah, I guess I’m supposed to talk about songs and that kind of thing. Well, I’ll start by talking about ‘<Ramones Song Title>’ which is a particularly lively number. The melody is poppy and easy to sing along to, yet the guitar and bass riffs combine to give the song a slightly heavier style. The lyrics do not have any real depth, yet are not offensive and do fit the general attitude of the song. Although in many ways it seems like the band plays it fairly safe, keeping the songs to a conventional length or even shorter and sticking to tried and tested chord sequences, they manage to come up with a distinct sound that draws on many influences but does not seek to emulate any one of these in particular.

If you want to read that paragraph lots of times over replacing a different song every time, feel free, but before you do, exceptions: ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ and ‘53^rd & 3^rd’ are especially good, and break up the monotony a little by trying something slightly different, and they’re well placed for this by being the beginning of each side. And ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, of course. Forget ‘Good Vibrations’, THIS is a perfect pop song.

Overall evaluation: If you’re interested in the band from a historical standpoint because they invented punk music, get this first. If you’re interested in them because you just like punk and don’t care about the context; they did make better albums than this, but this is still up there with the best of what punk has to offer.