The Ramones - The Ramones - 1976 - Alie's Pick

MATT’S REVIEW: My initial reaction to listening to the first track on the album, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, was that I waiting for a football team to kick off after scoring a touchdown. The chorus “hey ho, let’s goes!" is a very famous jock jam tag that has been played for decades now. “Blitzkrieg Bop” is one of the weakest songs on the album; the two best songs on the album are “Beat on the Brat” and “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”.

The most amazing attribute of this record is the fact that is was recorded in 1976, and not 1996. If I had never been exposed to their music, I would have guessed the latter. I also found it amazing that it was recorded on a budget of $6,000. (Funny enough, I mentioned last week that “Tusk” three years later (1979) was well over a million to produce to put it in perspective)

I have read that The Ramones were a phenomenal live band and that in fact their live recordings were superior to their studio recordings. I would most likely tend to agree with that statement, but I have not listened to any live recordings to date. I also felt that although the album was short in length (29:04), the differentiation of song structure and styles tended to be like that of a Sade album,…redundant. This is not to say that the songs individually were not good to even great, just that after four or five in a row, you may go a bit crazy. It almost is as if you left the room while one song was on and came back five minutes later you would most likely not be aware that a new song was playing. I think that the songs would be best utilized in iPod shuffle mode with rock/punk genre.

There were three singles off the album: "Blitzkrieg Bop", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and "53rd & 3rd." Surprisingly, not one of them charted, perhaps there was not a large market or outlet at the time for punk. Rolling Stone listed it as the #33 album all time in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time List in 2004.

I listened to the album twice through and I admittedly had never listed to it as a whole prior to this week. It is an album that I could pull out once to twice a year and give a quick spin. I will not go as far as to say that it is better than last weeks album, “Tusk”, but then again Rolling Stone seems to feel differently. (“Tusk” is not even in their 500 List) The Ramones are played in place of the band at football games, but the band played on “Tusk”, go figure.

Better Album or Singles Album:

Singles, the album or songs have no arrangement based or chronology, as mentioned, can handle a song here and there, but not a full album as much.

Rating: 3/5

ALIE’S REVIEW: When choosing albums for these reviews I have 2 goals.

1.) to expose Matt and others to music that they might enjoy, but not otherwise listen to. 2.) to listen to all of those albums I’ve never heard start to finish that I’ve been meaning to get around to but just haven’t for whatever reason.

In the case of this album it is the latter. The Ramones are the fathers of punk rock, which is a genre that I claim no expertise in, but do quite enjoy. This album definitely didn’t disappoint.

This album felt really raw to me. It feels like it could have been recorded in someone’s garage – and I mean that in a good way. It could be because like Matt said, it only cost $6,000 to record. I will agree that all of the songs had a very similar feel, very similar tempos and chord structure. They had a style and a sound all there own, like nothing anyone had heard at the time and they were true to that. At this time artists like Elton John and The Bee Gees were topping the chart, so The Ramones sound and style was like nothing anyone expected.

One thing I will say is that the lyrics are hard to understand. If I had more time I’d like to sit down with a lyrics list and go through the album with that. I think what the song says is really important and bad lyrics can ruin great music.

Unlike Matt, I actually like Blitkreig Bop. Maybe that’s because I don’t really watch or attend sporting events, so I don’t equate the song with being a Jock Jam. My two favorite tracks off the album are “Judy is a Punk” and “Chainsaw”.

I also disagree that this is a twice a year album. I could definitely listen to it once a month, although I think I like the punk rock genre more than he does.

Rating: 4/5

NEXT ALBUM (week of 3/29 - 4/4): Peter Gabriel - So - 1986 - Matt's Choice