#460 Ramones - Ramones

I keep thinking I've heard all the seminal rock albums ever and still keep finding weird oversights like this. Fixed!

You know what's strange about this album? It's arguably the first punk album, but its basically post-punk. Bad Brains would engage in shredding acrobatics, The Sex Pistols would engage in overt craven impulses, countless bands would engage in raging aggression, countless others still would engage in punk as revolution. But here The Ramones don't bother with any of that, they offend by refusing to engage, by refusing to entertain, by causally subverting what they're supposed to do during a rock song, creating confrontation by aggressive dismissal. Years later bans decided all the rage and noise wasn't necessary, that you could leverage punk by going thrumthrumthrumthrumthrumthrum. Turns out that's where it all started.

The songs smack of not giving a shit what you think one way or another. They're short, repetitive, utterly bereft of any attempt to change or get your attention, like they've been beamed from space a million years ago from a civilization whose planet was long since consumed by its gianting sun. The only things that even remotely be called pop gestures are the mini-solo in Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue and the vocal melody in the break in 53rd and 3rd. Everything else just chuggs along, shouting shouting, and gone.

Sure, there's some interesting cultural maneuvers here, copping early rock and roll moves with equal parts reverence and irreverence, but for the most part it just arrives and sits there, playing more or less the same song again and again and again. A good find, I had no idea how single-minded this shit really was, curiously brilliant in its small way 4/5

You might like this if: you want some repetitive, disinterested guitar rock that won't snap you from your reverie once. Good history lesson.