Ramones (album)
Encyclopedia
Ramones is the self-titled debut studio album by the American punk rock
band Ramones
. It was released on April 23, 1976, through Sire Records
. Prior to the band signing to Sire they were seen by Lisa Robinson, an editor of Hit Parader
, during an early 1975 performance. Robinson began popularizing the band by writing about them in the magazines she edited. Robinson contacted Danny Fields
and asked him to manage the band, which he agreed to in November 1975. A Marty Thau
produced demo album was recorded at 914 Sound Studios
and included "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
". Soon after the demos were presented to Sire A&R co-ordinator Craig Leon the band was signed to Sire Records.
The band started recording the album in February 1976 and spent an estimated US $6,400. Many recording techniques used for the album were similar to techniques used by The Beatles
and orchestral recordings. The album was produced by Craig Leon. The front cover depicts the band members standing in a line leaning against a brick wall. The photograph was taken by Roberta Bayley. The cover art was ranked number 58 on Rolling Stone
s list of 100 Greatest Album Covers.
The album features a number of themes including Nazism
, violence, male prostitution and drug use. The band covered the song "Let's Dance
" by Chris Montez
. A number of the tracks have backing vocals which were sung by Mickey Leigh, Tommy Ramone
, and engineer
Rob Freeman. The album received high ratings by reviewers; with Allmusic and Rolling Stone
, both rewarding it with a maximum rating of five out of five stars. Robert Christgau
gave the album an A
, writing "For me, it blows everything else off the radio."
The album reached number 111 in the United States on the Billboard 200
chart and was ranked number 33 on Rolling Stones The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
. Ramones was said by Nicholas Rombes, author of the 33⅓ book Ramones, and the Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine
to be the first album labeled as punk rock
. When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
one of the website's writers wrote a summary of the band's biography, specifically paying attention to its influence on punk rock. The album started the Ramones' career and would eventually go on to influence artists in the heavy metal, thrash metal, indie pop, grunge, and post-punk genres.
and Rock Scene, saw the Ramones performing at the New York-based club CBGB
. Robinson wrote about the band in several issues of the magazines she edited. Joey Ramone
related: "Lisa came down to see us, she was blown away by us. She said that we changed her life, She started writing about us in Rock Scene, and then Lenny Kaye would write about us and we started getting more press like The Village Voice
, word was getting out, and people starting coming down." Robinson contacted Danny Fields, former manager of The Stooges
, and convinced him to consider managing the Ramones as well. In November 1975 Fields decided to manage the band, remarking that the band "had everything [he] ever liked."
On September 19, 1975, the band recorded a demo album
at 914 Sound Studios
, produced
by Marty Thau
. It included "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and was used to promote the band to prospective labels. Producer Craig Leon
, who had seen them perform in the summer of 1975, brought the demo album to the attention of Seymour Stein
, president of Sire Records
. Tommy Ramone
recalled: "Craig Leon is the one who got us signed. Singlehanded. He brought down the vice president and all these people—he's the only hip one in the company. He risked his career to get us on the label." Linda Stein, ex-wife of Seymour Stein, also brought attention to the group, particularly praising the song "53rd & 3rd". After much persuasion from Linda Sten and Craig Leon the Ramones auditioned for Stein, Craig Leon, and other employees at Sire Records in an attempt to get signed.
At the time Sire Records was a small record label based in New York City
and led by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer. The label was originally strictly for "progressive" force bands from Europe under contract. The band was offered a contract to publish a single with their piece "You're Gonna Kill That Girl". The group and Fields rejected the offer because they wanted to record an album, but Sire adapted to their request and said that they would produce an album instead. Unsatisfied with the small sized deal that Sire offered them the band auditioned for other record companies, like Blue Sky and Arista Records, in order to get a record deal. They would eventually sign to Sire Records after the other record companies denied them a recording deal. After signing they organized several local shows.
The recording process was a deliberate exaggeration of the techniques used on the recording sessions of The Beatles
from the early 1960s, with a four-track recording representation of the devices. The guitars can be heard separately on the stereo channels — electric bass on the left, rhythm guitar on the right channel — drums and vocals are mixed in the middle of the stereo mix. The mixing of the recordings also used more modern techniques: overdubbing, a technique used by recording studio
s to add a supplementary recorded sound to previously recorded material; and doubling, where the vocal line used is sung twice.
The album was produced by Craig Leon, drummer Tommy Ramone
being credited as "Associate Producer". The studio recording for the album was expanded by Mickey Leigh and Craig Leon with percussion effects, which went unmentioned in the liner notes to the album's release. Nicholas Rombes said that the production's quality sounded like "the ultimate do-it-yourself, amateur, reckless ethic that is associated with punk," but concluded that they approached the recording process with a "high degree of preparedness and professionalism."
. They subsequently took pictures for $2,000 but Sire was dissatisfied with the results. According to John Holmstrom
the original idea "came out horribly". The band later met up with Roberta Bayley, at the time a photographer for Punk
magazine. Holmstrom noted that "getting the Ramones to pose was like pulling teeth", and also said it turned out to be "the classic Ramones album cover". The black and white photograph on the front of the album cover was originally featured in an issue of Punk. Sire offered to buy the rights to any of the pictures for the album cover.
The cover photo features (from left to right) Johnny, Tommy, Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, standing upright against a brick wall, staring at the camera with blank faces. The stance of the Ramones on the front cover would influence the design of several of their album covers, as well as many other photos of the band. Legs McNeil states that "Tommy [is] standing on his tip-toes and Joey [is] hunched over a bit." The back cover art, which depicts a belt buckle with an American Eagle and the band's logo, was designed by artist Arturo Vega and both pictures were made in a passport photo machine. The Ramones cover was ranked number fifty-eight on Rolling Stone
s 1991 list of 100 Greatest Album Covers.
released from Ramones: "Blitzkrieg Bop
" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
". "Blitzkrieg Bop" was released in July 1976, originally as a seven inch split single
with "Havana Affair" as its B-side
. On January 6, 2004, Rhino Entertainment
released "Blitzkrieg Bop" with "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker". "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" was released in October 1976 as a seven inch single. The single included "California Sun" and "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" as b-sides.
In 1974 the band played thirty performances, nearly all at the New York-based club CBGB. All but one of the band's performances in 1975 were booked for New York City, with Waterbury, Connecticut
being the only concert outside of New York. In 1976 over seventy concerts were performed, each to support the release of Ramones. There were over a hundred concerts performed in 1977 by the band.
, violence, male prostitution and drug use. Johnny said that when writing the lyrics they weren't "trying to be offensive." "Blitzkrieg Bop
", the album's opening track, was written by Tommy Ramone
. Tommy originally named the track "Animal Hop" but, after Dee Dee reviewed the lyrics, they changed the lyrics as well as the name. As put by Tommy the song's original concept was "about kids going to a show and having a good time". The piece begins with an instrumental
which lasts about twenty seconds. At the twentieth second the guitar
and bass
stop, marking Joey's first line: "Hey Ho, Let's Go!". The bass and guitar gradually rebuilds and according to Nicholas Rombes it is "in full–force again." The piece resolves
by replaying what is played at seconds twenty-two to thirty–three. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
from Allmusic described it as a "three-chord assault
".
"Beat on the Brat" was said by Joey to have origins relating to the upper class
of New York City.
Dee Dee, however, explained that the song was about how "Joey saw some mother going after a kid with a bat in his lobby and wrote a song about it."
"Judy Is a Punk" was written around the same time as "Beat on the Brat". Joey had explained that the first line came about after he walked by Thorny Croft, an apartment building that Joey said was "where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out on the rooftop and drank." The second line came about after walking down a different street. The lyrics refer to two juvenile offenders in Berlin
and San Francisco and their possible deaths at the conclusion of the song. The song is fictional, as announced Nicholas Rombes who describes this meta-perspective in his analysis of the album as "both line in a song and song line across a line in a song." "Judy Is a Punk" is the original album's shortest song, being one minute and 32 seconds.
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", the slowest and the only romantically colored piece on the album, was solely written by Tommy. The text has themes of irony, humor and the depiction of violence. The piece pays homage to love songs in pop music acts of the 1960s. Guitarist Johnny Ramone used a Fender
Stratocaster
instead of his usual guitar, the electric Mosrite
Ventures II. "Chain Saw" opens with the sound of a running circular saw
and was influenced by the 1974 horror film
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
directed by Tobe Hooper
. At nearly 180 beats per minute "Chain Saw" has the fastest tempo
among the album's songs and, according to Nicholas Rombes, is the most "home-made" sounding.
"Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" consists of four lines of minimalist lyrics which are about youthful boredom and inhaling the solvent vapors contained in glue. On the question of the authenticity of the text, Dee Dee said in an interview: "I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue. I stopped when I was eight [years old]." Dee Dee also explained that its concept comes from adolescent trauma. After several pieces by the Ramones, whose song's titles begin with "I Don't Want to ...", Tommy said that "Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" is known as the first positive song from the album. The song was the inspiration for the name of one of the first, and most famous, punk fanzines Mark Perry
's Sniffin' Glue
first published in 1976.
"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" was inspired by horror movies. It is a minimalist piece, the entire text containing only three lines, and is based on only three major chords. With a playing time of two minutes and 35 seconds it is the longest piece on the album. "Loudmouth" has six major chords and is a harmonically complex piece. The song's text is — depending on the reading and punctuation — just a single row or four very brief lines. "Havana Affair"'s concept deals with the comic strip Spy vs. Spy
of the Cuban-born illustrator Antonio Prohias
. At about 170 beats per minute "Loudmouth" and "Havana Affair" proceed at nearly the same tempo.
"Listen to My Heart" is the first of many, in the repertoire of the Ramones, made up of an ironic and pessimistic perspective with failing or already failed relationships. The song "53rd and 3rd" is about "Dee Dee turning tricks" said Johnny The song's text was written solely by Dee Dee and is about a male prostitute ("rent boy") who is vainly waiting on the street in Midtown Manhattan
, at the corner of Fifty-third Street
(53rd Street) and Third Avenue. When the prostitute gets a customer he kills him with a razor to prove he is not a homosexual. The authenticity and autobiographical coloring of lyrics exist contradictory statements by both the author and by his contemporaries. In some interviews with Dee Dee the piece is described as autobiographical. "The song speaks for itself," Dee Dee commented in an interview, "everything I write is autobiographical and written in a very real way, I can't even write."
"Let's Dance
" is a cover version of the Chris Montez
composition. "I Don't Want to Walk Around With You" consists of only two lines of text and three major chords. It is one of the earliest common compositions of the Ramones, and, according to Johnny Ramone, the song was originally named "I Do not Want to Get Involved With You", and is the very first sample of their first tape written at the beginning of 1974.
The album's final track, "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", refers to a Hitler Youth
member. Seymour Stein complained about the song and insisted that the track was offensive, contending that the lyrics "I'm a Nazi baby, I'm a Nazi yes I am," could not be published on a record. Before they released the album they came up with alternate lyrics for the line that read "I'm a shock trooper in a stupor, yes I am." They went with the alternate lyrics and released the album, and the song has since been the group's closer at live shows.
Several songs from the album feature backing vocals
from several different guests. Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, sang backing vocals on "Judy Is a Punk", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and in the bridge
of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Drummer
Tommy Ramone sang backing vocals on "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You", "Judy Is a Punk", and during the bridge of "Chainsaw". The album's engineer
, Rob Freeman, sang lead vocals
for the final refrain of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". The album's length is twenty-nine minutes and four seconds and features fourteen tracks.
. The album was well-received by critics. Reviewing for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album five out of five stars saying the album "begins at a blinding speed and never once over the course of its 14 songs does it let up." Erlewine also noted that the album "is all about speed, hooks, stupidity, and simplicity." Douglas Wolk of Rolling Stone
gave the album five out of five stars as well and noted that the album "is one of the happiest albums ever made." Robert Christgau
gave the album an A
and continued with a positive review, specifically writing about the album's themes and quality.
Charles M. Young, an employee for the Rolling Stone
, praised the album saying that the album is "one of the funniest rock records ever made and, if punk continues to gain momentum, a historic turning point." Jeff Tamarkin of Allmusic said that the album began the punk rock
era and also proclaimed "rock's mainstream didn't know what hit it." In 1999, Collins Gem Classic Albums wrote that "They stared from the cover of this magnificent debut album with dumb defiance written all over them. The songs within were a short, sharp exercise in vicious speed-thrash, driven by ferocious guitars and yet halting in an instant. It was the simple pop dream taken to its minimalist extreme. There just couldn't be anything faster or harder than this. The Ramones was the starting gun for English punk." Joe S. Harrington declared that the album "split the history of rock 'n' roll in half". Theunis Bates, a music writer for Time magazine
and an editor at worldpop.com, composed that "Ramones stripped rock back to its basic elements," and noted that its "lyrics are very simple, boiled-down declarations of teen lust and need." Bates later went on to say that it "is the ultimate punk statement".
Ramones reached number 111 on the Billboard 200
. The album was included in Spins List of Top Ten College Cult Classics, noting that "everything good that's happened to music in the last fourteen years can be directly traced to the Ramones." The band's debut album was ranked 33 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2003 Ramones was considered by Spin
magazine's Chuck Klosterman, Greg Milner, and Alex Pappademas to be the sixth most influential album of all time. They noted that the album "saved rock from itself and punk rock from art-gallery pretension, bless their pointy little heads," and also said that the their songs had, "one lightning-bolt riff." In Spins 1995 Alternative Record Guide the album is listed in the top spot of their Top 100 Alternative Albums.
, as well as popularizing it years afterward. Nicholas Rombes, author of the 33⅓ book Ramones wrote that it offered "alienated future rock," and that it, "disconnected from tradition." Since it is their debut album it began the Ramones' influence on popular music
, with examples being genres such as heavy metal
, thrash metal
, indie pop
, grunge
, and post-punk
.
The album received little commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the Billboard
album chart. Neither of the album's singles, "Blitzkrieg Bop
" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
", charted. Despite the lack of popularity in its era, some 25 years after its release the importance of the album for the development of punk rock music was recognized by the music press and music industry. Since then Ramones has won several awards. In 2001 Spin included it in its special issue 25 Years of Punk with a list of The 50 Most Essential Punk Records, where it was number 1 in the list. Tony James
said that "Everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album. Punk rock—that rama-lama super fast stuff—is totally down to the Ramones. Bands were just playing in an MC5
groove until then." The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
at The 2002 Induction Ceremony. The web-site said that "When the [Ramones] hit the street in 1976 with their self-titled first album, the rock scene in general had become somewhat bloated and narcissistic. The Ramones got back to basics: simple, speedy, stripped-down rock and roll songs. Voice, guitar, bass, drums. No makeup, no egos, no light shows, no nonsense. And though the subject matter was sometimes dark, emanating from a sullen adolescent basement of the mind, the group also brought cartoonish fun and high-energy excitement back to rock and roll."
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
. It was released on April 23, 1976, through Sire Records
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
. Prior to the band signing to Sire they were seen by Lisa Robinson, an editor of Hit Parader
Hit Parader
Hit Parader is an American music magazine focusing on the genres of hard rock, pop, and heavy metal.The magazine was originally started as a pop song lyric magazine by Charlton Publications in 1942. Charlton sold off the magazine before the company went under in 1991...
, during an early 1975 performance. Robinson began popularizing the band by writing about them in the magazines she edited. Robinson contacted Danny Fields
Danny Fields
Danny Fields is an American journalist and author. As a music-industry executive in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, he was one of the most influential figures in the underground and punk rock scenes.- Early life :...
and asked him to manage the band, which he agreed to in November 1975. A Marty Thau
Marty Thau
Marty Thau is an American rock 'n' roll entrepreneur and music producer. He is best known as the founder of Red Star Records in 1977, arguably America's first full - fledged post '60s indie punk punk - new wave label and for being the manager of the New York Dolls and co-producer of Suicide's...
produced demo album was recorded at 914 Sound Studios
914 Sound Studios
914 Sound Studios was a recording studio in Blauvelt, New York during the 1970s. Some of the artists who recorded tracks and albums in the studio were Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield, Ramones, Janis Ian, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Melanie...
and included "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released in the US in 1976. It is the fourth track on their debut album, Ramones....
". Soon after the demos were presented to Sire A&R co-ordinator Craig Leon the band was signed to Sire Records.
The band started recording the album in February 1976 and spent an estimated US $6,400. Many recording techniques used for the album were similar to techniques used by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and orchestral recordings. The album was produced by Craig Leon. The front cover depicts the band members standing in a line leaning against a brick wall. The photograph was taken by Roberta Bayley. The cover art was ranked number 58 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s list of 100 Greatest Album Covers.
The album features a number of themes including Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, violence, male prostitution and drug use. The band covered the song "Let's Dance
Let's Dance (Chris Montez song)
"Let's Dance" is rock band Slade's last single from 1988. The single was only released in the UK. The song was originally covered in 1985 and appeared on the Crackers – The Christmas Party Album the same year. The track was eventually released as a single after being dropped from RCA Records...
" by Chris Montez
Chris Montez
Chris Montez , is an American singer.-Early life:Montez grew up in Hawthorne, California, influenced by the Latino-flavored music of his community and the success of Ritchie Valens....
. A number of the tracks have backing vocals which were sung by Mickey Leigh, Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician...
, and engineer
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
Rob Freeman. The album received high ratings by reviewers; with Allmusic and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, both rewarding it with a maximum rating of five out of five stars. Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album an A
Grade (education)
Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...
, writing "For me, it blows everything else off the radio."
The album reached number 111 in the United States on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart and was ranked number 33 on Rolling Stones The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. Ramones was said by Nicholas Rombes, author of the 33⅓ book Ramones, and the Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
to be the first album labeled as punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
. When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
one of the website's writers wrote a summary of the band's biography, specifically paying attention to its influence on punk rock. The album started the Ramones' career and would eventually go on to influence artists in the heavy metal, thrash metal, indie pop, grunge, and post-punk genres.
Background
In early 1975 Lisa Robinson, an editor of Hit ParaderHit Parader
Hit Parader is an American music magazine focusing on the genres of hard rock, pop, and heavy metal.The magazine was originally started as a pop song lyric magazine by Charlton Publications in 1942. Charlton sold off the magazine before the company went under in 1991...
and Rock Scene, saw the Ramones performing at the New York-based club CBGB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
. Robinson wrote about the band in several issues of the magazines she edited. Joey Ramone
Joey Ramone
Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman...
related: "Lisa came down to see us, she was blown away by us. She said that we changed her life, She started writing about us in Rock Scene, and then Lenny Kaye would write about us and we started getting more press like The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, word was getting out, and people starting coming down." Robinson contacted Danny Fields, former manager of The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, and convinced him to consider managing the Ramones as well. In November 1975 Fields decided to manage the band, remarking that the band "had everything [he] ever liked."
On September 19, 1975, the band recorded a demo album
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
at 914 Sound Studios
914 Sound Studios
914 Sound Studios was a recording studio in Blauvelt, New York during the 1970s. Some of the artists who recorded tracks and albums in the studio were Bruce Springsteen, Dusty Springfield, Ramones, Janis Ian, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Melanie...
, produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
by Marty Thau
Marty Thau
Marty Thau is an American rock 'n' roll entrepreneur and music producer. He is best known as the founder of Red Star Records in 1977, arguably America's first full - fledged post '60s indie punk punk - new wave label and for being the manager of the New York Dolls and co-producer of Suicide's...
. It included "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and was used to promote the band to prospective labels. Producer Craig Leon
Craig Leon
Craig Leon is an American born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones and Blondie...
, who had seen them perform in the summer of 1975, brought the demo album to the attention of Seymour Stein
Seymour Stein
Seymour Stein is an entrepreneur in the music industry who has been a part of the business since getting his first job as a clerk for Billboard magazine in 1958. Stein is a vice president of Warner Bros...
, president of Sire Records
Sire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
. Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician...
recalled: "Craig Leon is the one who got us signed. Singlehanded. He brought down the vice president and all these people—he's the only hip one in the company. He risked his career to get us on the label." Linda Stein, ex-wife of Seymour Stein, also brought attention to the group, particularly praising the song "53rd & 3rd". After much persuasion from Linda Sten and Craig Leon the Ramones auditioned for Stein, Craig Leon, and other employees at Sire Records in an attempt to get signed.
At the time Sire Records was a small record label based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and led by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer. The label was originally strictly for "progressive" force bands from Europe under contract. The band was offered a contract to publish a single with their piece "You're Gonna Kill That Girl". The group and Fields rejected the offer because they wanted to record an album, but Sire adapted to their request and said that they would produce an album instead. Unsatisfied with the small sized deal that Sire offered them the band auditioned for other record companies, like Blue Sky and Arista Records, in order to get a record deal. They would eventually sign to Sire Records after the other record companies denied them a recording deal. After signing they organized several local shows.
Recording and production
In January 1976 the band took a temporary break from their performances to prepare for recording at Plaza Sound studio. They began recording in early February 1976. The album took $6,400 and seven days to record, the instruments taking three days and vocals taking four days. Joey related: "Some albums were costing a half-million dollars to make and taking two or three years to record." The band recorded using the same microphone placement techniques as many orchestras used to record pieces. In 2004 Craig Leon admitted that they recorded the album quickly due to budget restrictions, but later said that it was all the time they needed.The recording process was a deliberate exaggeration of the techniques used on the recording sessions of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
from the early 1960s, with a four-track recording representation of the devices. The guitars can be heard separately on the stereo channels — electric bass on the left, rhythm guitar on the right channel — drums and vocals are mixed in the middle of the stereo mix. The mixing of the recordings also used more modern techniques: overdubbing, a technique used by recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
s to add a supplementary recorded sound to previously recorded material; and doubling, where the vocal line used is sung twice.
The album was produced by Craig Leon, drummer Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician...
being credited as "Associate Producer". The studio recording for the album was expanded by Mickey Leigh and Craig Leon with percussion effects, which went unmentioned in the liner notes to the album's release. Nicholas Rombes said that the production's quality sounded like "the ultimate do-it-yourself, amateur, reckless ethic that is associated with punk," but concluded that they approached the recording process with a "high degree of preparedness and professionalism."
Photography and cover art
The Ramones originally wanted an album cover similar to the 1964 Beatles album, Meet The Beatles!Meet the Beatles!
-External links:*Bruce Spizer's *Bruce Spizer's *...
. They subsequently took pictures for $2,000 but Sire was dissatisfied with the results. According to John Holmstrom
John Holmstrom
John Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He is best known for illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe .As the founding editor of Punk Magazine at the age of 21 in late 1975, Holmstrom's work...
the original idea "came out horribly". The band later met up with Roberta Bayley, at the time a photographer for Punk
Punk (magazine)
Punk is a music magazine/fanzine created by cartoonist John Holmstrom, publisher Ged Dunn and "resident punk" Legs McNeil in 1975. Its use of the term "punk rock," coined by writers for Creem magazine a few years earlier, led to its worldwide acceptance as the definition for the new bands that were...
magazine. Holmstrom noted that "getting the Ramones to pose was like pulling teeth", and also said it turned out to be "the classic Ramones album cover". The black and white photograph on the front of the album cover was originally featured in an issue of Punk. Sire offered to buy the rights to any of the pictures for the album cover.
The cover photo features (from left to right) Johnny, Tommy, Joey and Dee Dee Ramone, standing upright against a brick wall, staring at the camera with blank faces. The stance of the Ramones on the front cover would influence the design of several of their album covers, as well as many other photos of the band. Legs McNeil states that "Tommy [is] standing on his tip-toes and Joey [is] hunched over a bit." The back cover art, which depicts a belt buckle with an American Eagle and the band's logo, was designed by artist Arturo Vega and both pictures were made in a passport photo machine. The Ramones cover was ranked number fifty-eight on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s 1991 list of 100 Greatest Album Covers.
Promotion
There were two singlesSingle (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
released from Ramones: "Blitzkrieg Bop
Blitzkrieg Bop
"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk rock band Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in April of 1976 in the United States...
" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released in the US in 1976. It is the fourth track on their debut album, Ramones....
". "Blitzkrieg Bop" was released in July 1976, originally as a seven inch split single
Split album
A split album is a music album which includes tracks by two or more separate artists. There have been singles and EPs released in the same nature, which can be referred to as split singles and split EPs respectively...
with "Havana Affair" as its B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
. On January 6, 2004, Rhino Entertainment
Rhino Entertainment
Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...
released "Blitzkrieg Bop" with "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker". "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" was released in October 1976 as a seven inch single. The single included "California Sun" and "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" as b-sides.
In 1974 the band played thirty performances, nearly all at the New York-based club CBGB. All but one of the band's performances in 1975 were booked for New York City, with Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City...
being the only concert outside of New York. In 1976 over seventy concerts were performed, each to support the release of Ramones. There were over a hundred concerts performed in 1977 by the band.
Compositions
Ramones features several themes including NazismNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, violence, male prostitution and drug use. Johnny said that when writing the lyrics they weren't "trying to be offensive." "Blitzkrieg Bop
Blitzkrieg Bop
"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk rock band Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in April of 1976 in the United States...
", the album's opening track, was written by Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone
Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician...
. Tommy originally named the track "Animal Hop" but, after Dee Dee reviewed the lyrics, they changed the lyrics as well as the name. As put by Tommy the song's original concept was "about kids going to a show and having a good time". The piece begins with an instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
which lasts about twenty seconds. At the twentieth second the guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
and bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
stop, marking Joey's first line: "Hey Ho, Let's Go!". The bass and guitar gradually rebuilds and according to Nicholas Rombes it is "in full–force again." The piece resolves
Resolution (music)
Resolution in western tonal music theory is the move of a note or chord from dissonance to a consonance .Dissonance, resolution, and suspense can be used to create musical interest...
by replaying what is played at seconds twenty-two to thirty–three. Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
from Allmusic described it as a "three-chord assault
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
".
"Beat on the Brat" was said by Joey to have origins relating to the upper class
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
of New York City.
Dee Dee, however, explained that the song was about how "Joey saw some mother going after a kid with a bat in his lobby and wrote a song about it."
"Judy Is a Punk" was written around the same time as "Beat on the Brat". Joey had explained that the first line came about after he walked by Thorny Croft, an apartment building that Joey said was "where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out on the rooftop and drank." The second line came about after walking down a different street. The lyrics refer to two juvenile offenders in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and San Francisco and their possible deaths at the conclusion of the song. The song is fictional, as announced Nicholas Rombes who describes this meta-perspective in his analysis of the album as "both line in a song and song line across a line in a song." "Judy Is a Punk" is the original album's shortest song, being one minute and 32 seconds.
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", the slowest and the only romantically colored piece on the album, was solely written by Tommy. The text has themes of irony, humor and the depiction of violence. The piece pays homage to love songs in pop music acts of the 1960s. Guitarist Johnny Ramone used a Fender
Fender
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, commonly referred to as simply Fender, of Scottsdale, Arizona is a manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and the Telecaster...
Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
instead of his usual guitar, the electric Mosrite
Mosrite
Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists....
Ventures II. "Chain Saw" opens with the sound of a running circular saw
Circular saw
The circular saw is a machine using a toothed metal cutting disc or blade. The term is also loosely used for the blade itself. The blade is a tool for cutting wood or other materials and may be hand-held or table-mounted. It can also be used to make narrow slots...
and was influenced by the 1974 horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
directed by Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the horror film genre. His works include the cult classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , along with its first sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ; the three-time Emmy-nominated Stephen King film adaptation...
. At nearly 180 beats per minute "Chain Saw" has the fastest tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
among the album's songs and, according to Nicholas Rombes, is the most "home-made" sounding.
"Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" consists of four lines of minimalist lyrics which are about youthful boredom and inhaling the solvent vapors contained in glue. On the question of the authenticity of the text, Dee Dee said in an interview: "I hope no one thinks we really sniff glue. I stopped when I was eight [years old]." Dee Dee also explained that its concept comes from adolescent trauma. After several pieces by the Ramones, whose song's titles begin with "I Don't Want to ...", Tommy said that "Now I Want to Sniff Some Glue" is known as the first positive song from the album. The song was the inspiration for the name of one of the first, and most famous, punk fanzines Mark Perry
Mark Perry (musician)
Mark Perry, also known as Mark P, was a British fanzine publisher and is a writer and musician.Perry was a bank clerk when, inspired by The Ramones, he founded the punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue in 1976...
's Sniffin' Glue
Sniffin' Glue
Sniffin' Glue is the name of a monthly punk zine started by Mark Perry in July 1976 and released for about a year. The name is derived from a Ramones song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." Others that wrote for the magazine that later became well known journalists include Danny Baker.Although initial...
first published in 1976.
"I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" was inspired by horror movies. It is a minimalist piece, the entire text containing only three lines, and is based on only three major chords. With a playing time of two minutes and 35 seconds it is the longest piece on the album. "Loudmouth" has six major chords and is a harmonically complex piece. The song's text is — depending on the reading and punctuation — just a single row or four very brief lines. "Havana Affair"'s concept deals with the comic strip Spy vs. Spy
Spy vs. Spy
Spy vs. Spy is a black and white comic strip that debuted in Mad magazine #60, dated January 1961, and was originally published by EC Comics. The strip was created by Antonio Prohías.The Spy vs...
of the Cuban-born illustrator Antonio Prohias
Antonio Prohias
Antonio Prohías , born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, was a cartoonist most famous for creating the comic strip Spy vs. Spy for MAD Magazine....
. At about 170 beats per minute "Loudmouth" and "Havana Affair" proceed at nearly the same tempo.
"Listen to My Heart" is the first of many, in the repertoire of the Ramones, made up of an ironic and pessimistic perspective with failing or already failed relationships. The song "53rd and 3rd" is about "Dee Dee turning tricks" said Johnny The song's text was written solely by Dee Dee and is about a male prostitute ("rent boy") who is vainly waiting on the street in Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...
, at the corner of Fifty-third Street
53rd Street (Manhattan)
53rd Street is a midtown cross street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, that contains buildings such as the Citicorp Building. It is 1.83 miles long. The street runs westbound from Sutton Place across most of the island's width, ending at DeWitt Clinton Park at Eleventh Avenue...
(53rd Street) and Third Avenue. When the prostitute gets a customer he kills him with a razor to prove he is not a homosexual. The authenticity and autobiographical coloring of lyrics exist contradictory statements by both the author and by his contemporaries. In some interviews with Dee Dee the piece is described as autobiographical. "The song speaks for itself," Dee Dee commented in an interview, "everything I write is autobiographical and written in a very real way, I can't even write."
"Let's Dance
Let's Dance (Chris Montez song)
"Let's Dance" is rock band Slade's last single from 1988. The single was only released in the UK. The song was originally covered in 1985 and appeared on the Crackers – The Christmas Party Album the same year. The track was eventually released as a single after being dropped from RCA Records...
" is a cover version of the Chris Montez
Chris Montez
Chris Montez , is an American singer.-Early life:Montez grew up in Hawthorne, California, influenced by the Latino-flavored music of his community and the success of Ritchie Valens....
composition. "I Don't Want to Walk Around With You" consists of only two lines of text and three major chords. It is one of the earliest common compositions of the Ramones, and, according to Johnny Ramone, the song was originally named "I Do not Want to Get Involved With You", and is the very first sample of their first tape written at the beginning of 1974.
The album's final track, "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", refers to a Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
member. Seymour Stein complained about the song and insisted that the track was offensive, contending that the lyrics "I'm a Nazi baby, I'm a Nazi yes I am," could not be published on a record. Before they released the album they came up with alternate lyrics for the line that read "I'm a shock trooper in a stupor, yes I am." They went with the alternate lyrics and released the album, and the song has since been the group's closer at live shows.
Several songs from the album feature backing vocals
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
from several different guests. Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, sang backing vocals on "Judy Is a Punk", "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", and in the bridge
Bridge (music)
In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section...
of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Drummer
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Tommy Ramone sang backing vocals on "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You", "Judy Is a Punk", and during the bridge of "Chainsaw". The album's engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
, Rob Freeman, sang lead vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
for the final refrain of "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend". The album's length is twenty-nine minutes and four seconds and features fourteen tracks.
Reception
Ramones was released on April 23, 1976 through Sire RecordsSire Records
Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a...
. The album was well-received by critics. Reviewing for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album five out of five stars saying the album "begins at a blinding speed and never once over the course of its 14 songs does it let up." Erlewine also noted that the album "is all about speed, hooks, stupidity, and simplicity." Douglas Wolk of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
gave the album five out of five stars as well and noted that the album "is one of the happiest albums ever made." Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
gave the album an A
Grade (education)
Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...
and continued with a positive review, specifically writing about the album's themes and quality.
Charles M. Young, an employee for the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, praised the album saying that the album is "one of the funniest rock records ever made and, if punk continues to gain momentum, a historic turning point." Jeff Tamarkin of Allmusic said that the album began the punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
era and also proclaimed "rock's mainstream didn't know what hit it." In 1999, Collins Gem Classic Albums wrote that "They stared from the cover of this magnificent debut album with dumb defiance written all over them. The songs within were a short, sharp exercise in vicious speed-thrash, driven by ferocious guitars and yet halting in an instant. It was the simple pop dream taken to its minimalist extreme. There just couldn't be anything faster or harder than this. The Ramones was the starting gun for English punk." Joe S. Harrington declared that the album "split the history of rock 'n' roll in half". Theunis Bates, a music writer for Time magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and an editor at worldpop.com, composed that "Ramones stripped rock back to its basic elements," and noted that its "lyrics are very simple, boiled-down declarations of teen lust and need." Bates later went on to say that it "is the ultimate punk statement".
Ramones reached number 111 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. The album was included in Spins List of Top Ten College Cult Classics, noting that "everything good that's happened to music in the last fourteen years can be directly traced to the Ramones." The band's debut album was ranked 33 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2003 Ramones was considered by Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
magazine's Chuck Klosterman, Greg Milner, and Alex Pappademas to be the sixth most influential album of all time. They noted that the album "saved rock from itself and punk rock from art-gallery pretension, bless their pointy little heads," and also said that the their songs had, "one lightning-bolt riff." In Spins 1995 Alternative Record Guide the album is listed in the top spot of their Top 100 Alternative Albums.
Legacy
Ramones is considered to have established the musical genre punk rockPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, as well as popularizing it years afterward. Nicholas Rombes, author of the 33⅓ book Ramones wrote that it offered "alienated future rock," and that it, "disconnected from tradition." Since it is their debut album it began the Ramones' influence on popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, with examples being genres such as heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
, indie pop
Indie pop
Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...
, grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
, and post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
.
The album received little commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
album chart. Neither of the album's singles, "Blitzkrieg Bop
Blitzkrieg Bop
"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk rock band Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in April of 1976 in the United States...
" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
"I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released in the US in 1976. It is the fourth track on their debut album, Ramones....
", charted. Despite the lack of popularity in its era, some 25 years after its release the importance of the album for the development of punk rock music was recognized by the music press and music industry. Since then Ramones has won several awards. In 2001 Spin included it in its special issue 25 Years of Punk with a list of The 50 Most Essential Punk Records, where it was number 1 in the list. Tony James
Tony James
Tony James is a British musician, best known as a bassist of Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.- Career :He was originally a member of the punk band London SS, along with Brian James, , and Mick Jones plus Terry Chimes .Later, James joined the early punk band Chelsea...
said that "Everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album. Punk rock—that rama-lama super fast stuff—is totally down to the Ramones. Bands were just playing in an MC5
MC5
The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan and originally active from 1964 to 1972. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson...
groove until then." The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
at The 2002 Induction Ceremony. The web-site said that "When the [Ramones] hit the street in 1976 with their self-titled first album, the rock scene in general had become somewhat bloated and narcissistic. The Ramones got back to basics: simple, speedy, stripped-down rock and roll songs. Voice, guitar, bass, drums. No makeup, no egos, no light shows, no nonsense. And though the subject matter was sometimes dark, emanating from a sullen adolescent basement of the mind, the group also brought cartoonish fun and high-energy excitement back to rock and roll."
Track listing
All tracks credited to Ramones, except 12.| Original release | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%; text-align:center; margin: 5px;"> | |||||||||||||||
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Backing vocals | Length | Ref | ||||||||||
| Side A | |||||||||||||||
| 1. | "Blitzkrieg Bop Blitzkrieg Bop "Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk rock band Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in April of 1976 in the United States... " |
Tommy Ramone Tommy Ramone Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician... , Dee Dee Ramone Dee Dee Ramone Dee Dee Ramone was an American songwriter and musician, best known as founding member, bassist and main songwriter of the punk rock band the Ramones.... |
Mickey Leigh | 2:12 | |||||||||||
| 2. | "Beat on the Brat" | Joey Ramone Joey Ramone Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman... |
— | 2:30 | |||||||||||
| 3. | "Judy Is a Punk" | Leigh, Tommy Ramone | 1:30 | ||||||||||||
| 4. | "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released in the US in 1976. It is the fourth track on their debut album, Ramones.... " |
Tommy Ramone | Leigh, Rob Freeman | 2:24 | |||||||||||
| 5. | "Chain Saw" | Joey Ramone | Tommy Ramone | 1:55 | |||||||||||
| 6. | "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" | Dee Dee Ramone | — | 1:34 | |||||||||||
| 7. | "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" | Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Ramone Johnny Ramone John William Cummings , better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American guitarist and songwriter, best known for being the guitarist for the punk rock band the Ramones. He was a founding member of the band, and remained a member throughout the band's entire career... |
— | 2:35 | |||||||||||
| Side B | |||||||||||||||
| 8. | "Loudmouth" | Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Ramone | — | 2:14 | |||||||||||
| 9. | "Havana Affair" | — | 2:00 | ||||||||||||
| 10. | "Listen to My Heart" | Dee Dee Ramone | — | 1:56 | |||||||||||
| 11. | "53rd & 3rd 53rd & 3rd "53rd & 3rd" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released as the band's second single and the final released from their debut album, Ramones.-Lyrics:... " |
— | 2:19 | ||||||||||||
| 12. | "Let's Dance Let's Dance (Chris Montez song) "Let's Dance" is rock band Slade's last single from 1988. The single was only released in the UK. The song was originally covered in 1985 and appeared on the Crackers – The Christmas Party Album the same year. The track was eventually released as a single after being dropped from RCA Records... " |
Jim Lee | — | 1:51 | |||||||||||
| 13. | "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" | Dee Dee Ramone | Tommy Ramone | 1:43 | |||||||||||
| 14. | "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" | — | 2:09 | ||||||||||||
| "—" denotes that there were no backing vocals. | |||||||||||||||
| 2001 Expanded Edition CD | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| class="wikitable" style="font-size:93%; text-align:center; margin:5px;"> | |||||||||||||||
| # | Title | Demo | Producer | Notes | Length | Ref | |||||||||
| 1. | "Blitzkrieg Bop Blitzkrieg Bop "Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk rock band Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in April of 1976 in the United States... " |
Craig Leon Craig Leon Craig Leon is an American born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones and Blondie... |
— | 2:12 | |||||||||||
| 2. | "Beat on the Brat" | — | 2:30 | ||||||||||||
| 3. | "Judy Is a Punk" | — | 1:30 | ||||||||||||
| 4. | "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released in the US in 1976. It is the fourth track on their debut album, Ramones.... " |
— | 2:24 | ||||||||||||
| 5. | "Chain Saw" | — | 1:55 | ||||||||||||
| 6. | "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" | — | 1:34 | ||||||||||||
| 7. | "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" | — | 2:35 | ||||||||||||
| 8. | "Loudmouth" | — | 2:00 | ||||||||||||
| 9. | "Havana Affair" | — | 2:00 | ||||||||||||
| 10. | "Listen to My Heart" | — | 1:56 | ||||||||||||
| 11. | "53rd & 3rd 53rd & 3rd "53rd & 3rd" is a song by the American punk rock band the Ramones. It was released as the band's second single and the final released from their debut album, Ramones.-Lyrics:... " |
— | 2:19 | ||||||||||||
| 12. | "Let's Dance Let's Dance (Chris Montez song) "Let's Dance" is rock band Slade's last single from 1988. The single was only released in the UK. The song was originally covered in 1985 and appeared on the Crackers – The Christmas Party Album the same year. The track was eventually released as a single after being dropped from RCA Records... " |
— | 1:51 | ||||||||||||
| 13. | "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You" | — | 1:43 | ||||||||||||
| 14. | "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" | — | 2:09 | ||||||||||||
| 15. | "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" | Marty Thau | First issued on United Kingdom single, recorded at 914 Studios | 3:02 | |||||||||||
| 16. | "Judy Is a Punk" | First issued on United Kingdom single, recorded at 914 Studios | 1:36 | ||||||||||||
| 17. | "I Don't Care" | Tommy Ramone | Previously Unissued | 1:55 | |||||||||||
| 18. | "I Can't Be" | First issued on All The Stuff (And More!) Volume 1 All the Stuff (And More!) Volume 1 All the Stuff Volume One is a compilation album by the Ramones. It includes their first two albums, Ramones and Leave Home, in their entirety, with the exception of "Carbona Not Glue", a song that was on the original release of Leave Home but was later removed from the album under pressure from... , Sire #26220 |
1:56 | ||||||||||||
| 19. | "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" | Previously Unissued | 1:42 | ||||||||||||
| 20. | "I Don’t Wanna Be Learned/I Don’t Wanna Be Tamed" | First issued on All The Stuff (And More!) Volume 1 All the Stuff (And More!) Volume 1 All the Stuff Volume One is a compilation album by the Ramones. It includes their first two albums, Ramones and Leave Home, in their entirety, with the exception of "Carbona Not Glue", a song that was on the original release of Leave Home but was later removed from the album under pressure from... , Sire #26220 |
1:05 | ||||||||||||
| 21. | "You Should Never Have Opened That Door" | Previously Unissued | 1:54 | ||||||||||||
| 22. | "Blitzkrieg Bop (single version)" | Craig Leon | First issued on "'Blitzkrieg Bop" single | 2:12 | |||||||||||
| "—" denotes that there were no notes on the track. | |||||||||||||||
Personnel
| Ramones | Production | Ref | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joey Ramone Joey Ramone Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman... – lead vocals Lead vocalist The lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the... |
|Craig Leon Craig Leon Craig Leon is an American born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones and Blondie... – producer Record producer A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music... |
Greg Calbi – mastering Audio mastering Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced... |
|
| Johnny Ramone Johnny Ramone John William Cummings , better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American guitarist and songwriter, best known for being the guitarist for the punk rock band the Ramones. He was a founding member of the band, and remained a member throughout the band's entire career... – guitar Guitar The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... |
Roberta Bayley – photography Photography Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film... , cover photo Cover art Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e... |
Don Hunerberg – assistant engineer | |
| Dee Dee Ramone Dee Dee Ramone Dee Dee Ramone was an American songwriter and musician, best known as founding member, bassist and main songwriter of the punk rock band the Ramones.... – bass Bass guitar The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... , backing vocals Backing vocalist A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists... |
Rob Freeman – engineer Audio engineering An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including... |
Arturo Vega – photography, back cover Album cover An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing... |
|
| Tommy Ramone Tommy Ramone Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician... – drums Drum kit A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... , associate producer |
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Release history
| Region | Year | Label | Format | Catalog | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worldwide release | 1976 | Sire Records Sire Records Sire Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer, each investing ten thousand dollars into the new company. Its early releases as a... |
Vinyl Gramophone record A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove... |
SR-6020 | |
| 1999 | WEA International | Compact Disc Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
RR 1805 | ||
| 2001 | Rhino Rhino Entertainment Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes... |
Vinyl | SR-7520 | ||
| 2006 | WEA International | Vinyl | SR-24323-5 | ||
| 2007 | WEA International | Compact Disc | RR-7506-0 | ||
| US release | 2008 | Wrong Records | RR-9274-21 | ||
| Worldwide release | Sire/Rhino/London London Records London Records, referred to as London Recordings in logo, is a record label headquartered in the United Kingdom, originally marketing records in the United States, Canada and Latin America from 1947 to 1979, then becoming a semi-independent label.... |
RR-7520 |
Chart positions
| Chart | Peak Position |
|---|---|
| Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
111 |
| Swedish Music Charts | 48 |