Ramones Album

RAMONES

Ramones is the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones, released on February 4, 1976 by Sire Records. The Ramones began recording in January 1976, needing only seven days and $6,400 to record the album. They used similar sound-output techniques to those of the Beatles, and used advanced production methods by Craig Leon. Most of the album’s tracks are uptempo, with many songs measuring at well over 160 beats per minute. The songs are also rather short, with the longest at two-and-a-half minutes. Ramones peaked at No. 111 on the US Billboard 200 and was unsuccessful commercially. However, many later deemed it a highly influential record. Ramones went on to inspire many bands like the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, and the Clash, among others. Aside from sparking the punk-rock scene in both the US and UK, it has had a significant impact on other genres of rock music, such as grunge and heavy metal. (More from Wikipedia)

Writing for the Rolling Stone Record Guide, David McGee states: “To get an idea of his indelible contribution to rock & roll, consider the critic Lester Bangs’ citation of [Ritchie] Valens as the prototypical punk guitarist whose signature ‘La Bamba’ riff links Valens to a hard-edged, no-frills style of rock & roll later advanced by the Kingsmen, the Kinks, the Stooges, and the Ramones.” The thrilling Ramones call “Hey Ho, Let’s Go” – from the opening song “Blitzkrieg Bop” on their first album, Ramones – might have been lifted directly from Ritchie Valens’ “Come On, Let’s Go”.

(June 2013/1)

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The debut Ramones by Ramones is a landmark album released in April 1976 that initially went nowhere, peaking at #111 on the Billboard album charts. In retrospect, all of the ingredients of punk rock were there, and its influence was enormous. Stephen Thomas Erlewine states flatly in his article on the band in Allmusic: “The Ramones were the first punk rock band. . . . By cutting rock & roll down to its bare essentials – four chords; a simple, catchy melody; and irresistibly inane lyrics – and speeding up the tempo considerably, the Ramones created something that was rooted in early ’60s, pre-Beatles rock & roll and pop but sounded revolutionary.” Rolling Stone lists Ramones as #26 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time; while in 2002, Spin magazine named them the second best band, behind only the Beatles.

In seemingly no time, the music scene was crowded with top bands and artists whose work has held up well over the decades since, among them Patti Smith Group (whose debut album, Horses came out before Ramones, in December 1975), Television, Richard Hell, the Heartbreakers (the punk band not Tom Petty’s group, though he was a part of the scene as well), Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, Blondie, the Clash, the Cars, Elvis Costello, Pat Benatar, Joy Division, the Specials, the Go-Go’s, the Police, etc., etc., etc. There were so many that rock critics and others began distinguishing bands in the safety-pin set as “punk” and others that were less confrontational as “new wave”.

(December 2016)