Mojo - The Music Magazine

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• Joey Ramones's last offering is the best Ramones album since End of The Century.

  Posted by Alan Lord at 9:12 PM GMT 24/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• When I first experienced the Ramones I was just entering high school in 1975. They were so different and powerfull from anything I'd heard before. Someone once said " something is truly new when you can't compare to anything you have heard before". I am now a 45 year old man who still listens to their music daily and wears their T shirts. Damn I miss them.

  Shawn Finegan

  Posted by Shawn Finegan at 6:56 PM GMT 25/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• Compilations: Wierd Tales of the Ramones, the recent box set, is a good sampler, with a great comic book and other materials. Chooses generously from the early albums and selectively from the later ones, which is as it should be. Some nice rarities on it too; their version of the 'Spiderman' theme is extremely entertaining, as is their strangely onanistic cover of 'R.A.M.O.N.E.S' Motorhead's tribute to them.

  If you want a single disc, it should be Ramonesmania, which takes the story up to the mid-eighties. Anything you want after that can be harvested track at a time from internet music shops.

  Avoid: The Chrysalis Years. Collects their most inessential period along with an inessential live recording.

  If you're buying... you will want to get the wonderful rockumentary, End of the Century, which tells their story with great vitality and power, with some hilarious footage of early onstage arguments and some amusing and alarming interviews with the then surviving members. Ultimately it's a very moving documentary about friends torn apart who are unable to resolve their problems and die unreconciled.

  Also... the Ramones musical! Rock 'n' Roll High School is a true one-off, a 50s-pastiche high school musical that imagines all these fresh-faced preppies trying to sneak out of school to see the Ramones. The Bruddas' appearance in the movie - both playing and 'acting' - takes it to another level. There are loads of good jokes about the anti-rockism of the 1950s (look out for the hoodlum mouse in the audience).

  Album-wise: The first four albums, The Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, and Road to Ruin are essential. They create a very tight format but they are remarkably creative within that, and their occasional branching out into ballads ('Questioningly' off Road to Ruin, for example) or covers ('Surfin' Bird' off Rocket to Russia, which they wholly make their own) is very successful. From there it's diminishing returns.

  I'm very fond of Animal Boy which has one of their greatest singles 'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg' which is probably a protest against Reagan giving bland political excuses for paying his respects at a Nazi war cemetery, and also the least convincing anti-drugs song of all time in 'Crummy Stuff'.

  Pleasant Dreams features the hilarious and brilliant 'The KKK Took My Baby Away', a great highlight of their career.

  End of the Century is just a total mismatch of the band with Phil Spector; they loved and 'got' his work; he didn't have a clue who he was working with and was a legendary nightmare in the studio, pulling guns on the band, rerecording banal barre chords 100s of times, shrouding the whole thing in muddy echo, and totally missing the point. The only highlight is the entirely exquisite Ronettes cover 'Baby I Love You'.

  Live albums: essentially, the Ramones always sounded the same live, though the energy was rather forced after the mid-80s. The first live album, It's Alive, is still their best, in fact one of the best live albums ever recorded. 28 songs in under an hour, barely a pause for breath between songs, a slamming punch of sound, loads of killer tunes and for almost every listener an ache of regret that you weren't there at the Rainbow Theatre, London, on New Year's Eve 1977.

  Posted by Twangfreak at 12:43 PM GMT 27/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• The first three Ramones albums are among the best albums ever made :- Ramones,Leave Home,and Rocket To Russia. After that they tried to 'progress' musically and lost the plot a bit , although now and agin they came up with a great song ie 'the KKK took my baby away'. For compilations look no further than 'Its Alive' a fantastic one-cd reissue of the original double album , which has all the best songs , played faster and louder.'Anthology' is also worthwhile as it has one disc of the best early years stuff and a second disc which collects the best of the last 20 years. Thats all you need really

  Posted by Steve Anderton at 3:07 PM GMT 27/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• Just as Dee Dee says: 1-2-3-4!

  the first four Ramones albums are must haves for any punk enthusiast. IMO, ALL of the Ramones albums are essential, but I'd recommend starting with The Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin

  Gotta, gotta have

  Posted by Dale Spear at 4:32 PM GMT 27/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• It was supposed to be a marriage made in heaven but ended up like a sad divorce. But at least they would always have a son to be proud of. Despite the rawness of the first albums one could suspect how wonderful the Ramones would sound with a big and epic production. And who's better than the original bombastic king to take the mission?
  There are some flaws in End of the Century, the Ramones/Spector collabaration. But when the things work out, they really work. Besides the wonderful Ronettes cover and Rock'n'Roll Radio, the record was packed with nice tunes, including one of their neglected masterpieces in Danny Says, an ode to Danny Fields one of the greatest (unsung? not after this song) rock heroes.

  Posted by Leandro Saueia at 12:56 AM GMT 29/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• The indispensibility of the first four LP's cannot be stressed enough, of those my fave being "Road to Ruin", I will also add that I think "Pleasant Dreams" is as much of a classic as the first 4, "Too Tough To Die" is also very solid with only 1 or 2 filler tracks (and the title track is a CLASSIC) and "animal boy" also very solid. I will defend All of those records, and say the catalogue gets spotty after that, but there are always moments of greatness that shine through the spotty records ("I believe in miracles", their covers of "I don't want to grow up" & "substitute"). as far as comps go "Hey Ho Let's Go" - anthology is a one stop shop to get all you need by the Ramones on two discs (although I wish any of the comps would have included "Mental Hell" from "animal boy")

  Posted by Steve Pettit at 11:32 PM GMT 29/11/2006 Report Abuse

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• Obviously the first four albums (in descending order?)
  Then the eigth, "Too Tough To Die" is a late classic & not so much a return to form as an attempt to toughen up in the wake of 80's hardcore punk. After that, freefall sadly.
  "Hey Ho Let's Go" gets my vote for best comp although only disc one is gonna get any serious play. Disc two begins well but starts to irritate. But who listens to whole albums these days anyway?
  Great Jukebox/Party Shuffle band!

  Posted by gumby909 at 2:32 AM GMT 03/12/2006 Report Abuse

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• 1. Hey Ho Let's Go: The Anthology (the Rhino one) - great booklet. 2 discs - the first is a true best of, the second a great sampler of the later weirder stuff.

  2. Ramones - Could there be any other. They've been trying to remake this album ever since. From the cover down, a classic in every sense.

  3. Rocket To Russia - a power pop gem, a garage rock masterpiece, and should have been a big seller. Sheena, Rockaway, Do You Wanna Dance, Surfin' Bird should have been all over radio.

  4. End Of the Century - A troubled making, sure, but all the fun of the Ramones is here. The excitement of Rock N Roll Radio, the tender Danny Says, the defining Rock 'N' Roll High school...get the bonus version with I Want You Around

  5. Road to Ruin - caught between the classic period and trying to break away, it's still full of under-rated classic. Don't Come Close is worth the price of admission alone.

  6. Too Tough To Die - The Dee Dee album. Truly abrasive and the most punk album they've ever done.

  7. Leave Home - In a way it's more of the same but the same is so great

  8. Any live recordings from before 1980

  Posted by Danny Yau at 9:44 PM GMT 05/12/2006 Report Abuse

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• It has been said many times before the first four albums are essential, quite correct. RAMONES is without doubt a record that changed the way i lived, Judy is a punk remains my favorite record of all time, 1 minute 29 seconds of pure perfect pop not 1 second of wasted energy or sound. Play it loud on a stereo system and hear the sledghammer of the best start a song every had. just wonderful. The first album, number 1,
  its alive number 2, when you had seen them live around this time, it stayed with you forever, the energy, the whole atmosphere, the ramones were awesome live at this time, very tight very loud. Rocket to russia and leave home were great, end of the century started the change, but there are several good tracks there. Pleasant dreams and too tough to die i enjoyed, we all know they outstayed thier welcome musically, but i reckon they deserved to do whatever they wanted to. I fuckin love em.
  Got to play with Marky Ramone in 2003, during his spoken word tour, and he was a decent guy, who spoke fondly of all, we know of thier troubles. Marky drummed for our band as we played 11 ramones songs, and i have never heard anyone hit drums that hard. They wanted to be big, but became legendary instead. and rightly so

  Posted by chris martin at 9:17 PM GMT 17/12/2006 Report Abuse

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• In no particular order: Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia

  The best and most aptly titled live album ever, It's alive, sounds like a monster that can''t be stopped and truly captured the Ramones at the top of their powers.

  Of the later albums Mondo Bizarro stands out as a classic album, the one that recaptured the optimism, anxiety, weirdness and determination of the early work. CJ definitely put some freshness back into the Ramones. It's sad that this album seems to be a forgetten gem.

  Posted by Adam Sandtke at 11:24 AM GMT 03/01/2007 Report Abuse

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