Animal boy

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Animal boy
Ramones studio album

Publication
(s)

May 1986 (USA) / July 1986 (UK)

Label (s) Sire Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

punk

Title (number)

12

running time

32:07 (CD)

occupation
  • Walter Lure - electric guitar

production

Jean Beauvoir

Studio (s)

Intergalactic Studios , New York

chronology
Too Tough to Die (1984) Animal boy Halfway to Sanity
(1987)

Animal Boy is the ninth studio album by the American punk band Ramones, first released in 1986 .

History of origin

The Ramones began recording Animal Boy in December 1985 at Intergalactic Studios . Although the results of the work of the producer team Ed Stasium / T. Erdelyi on their previous album Too Tough to Die had been received very positively by the band, critics and fans alike, they again switched producers and hired the former guitarist of the band Plasmatics , Jean Beauvoir, who had previously produced the Ramones single Bonzo Goes to Bitburg .

Conflicts in the studio

During the recording work, the smoldering personal conflict between singer Joey Ramone and guitarist Johnny Ramone since the band's 1981 studio album, Pleasant Dreams , continued. According to interviews with band members, this conflict on the album Animal Boy was expressed in particular by the fact that the guitarist rejected most of the singer's compositions and refused to play them. The result is that Joey Ramone only featured two single-handedly written titles on the album. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone about this in an interview with the English music magazine New Musical Express :

“It's not fair. […] It's Johnny, man. Joey will present a great tune and Johnny won't do it because it's this or it's that. [...] That's why Joey's gotta do his solo album. "

"It's not fair. [...] It's Johnny, man. Joey presents a great composition, and Johnny doesn't want to play it because of this or that. [...] That's why Joey should do his solo album. "

- Dee Dee Ramone : Interview

In contrast, the bassist on Animal Boy is responsible for nine of the thirteen tracks as sole or co-author, three of them together with the guitarist. At the time of the album's creation, Joey Ramone himself was also thinking of releasing a solo album, but after the release of Animal Boy he was confident that the most serious problems within the band had been overcome.

Album cover

As on the previous album Too Tough To Die, photographer George DuBose was engaged for the photography on the front of the album cover . The cover photo shows the band standing in front of a gorilla cage; Drummer Richie Ramone holds a chimpanzee in his arms. The photo was originally supposed to be taken in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo , but the zoo management refused. Alternatively, there was a studio appointment with my friend Legs McNeil, author of Punk Magazine , in a gorilla costume behind bars. DuBose had to forego flash light when taking the picture out of consideration for the chimpanzees involved, which is why the photo has a strong color cast.

Reception, criticism

In the New York Times , music critic Jon Pareles gave Animal Boy the title “Album of the Week” on the grounds that the Ramones “speak for all outsiders and the disturbed […] Whether they get into the top 40 or not, the Ramones will not sell out operate ” , while his colleague at the US magazine The New Yorker , Robert Christgau, described his opinion of the album as “ ambivalent, between hit or rivet ” and criticized the album for “ lacking the consistency with which they made it big " . The writer and Ramones biographer Dick Porter described Animal Boy as "their first really lousy album" .

Animal Boy reached number 31 in the British Top 40 album charts in 1986, and only came to number 147 in the US Billboard charts in May 1986.

The pieces of music on the album (selection)

My Brain is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg) was written by Joey Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone and was released as a single in the UK under the shorter title Bonzo Goes to Bitburg in 1985 prior to its release on Animal Boy . The song is the first composition in the Ramones' repertoire that explicitly has an event of the day's political events as its content. The lyrics are a reaction to the controversial visit to the German military cemetery Bitburg in Rhineland-Palatinate on May 5, 1985 by the then US President Ronald Reagan . Reagan had visited the cemetery, where members of the Waffen SS are buried, to lay a wreath on the occasion of a state visit together with the then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl .

The name "Bonzo", used in the song as a nickname for Reagan, is inspired by the US movie Bedtime for Bonzo , in which Reagan played a leading role - alongside a chimpanzee with the film name "Bonzo". The lyrics criticize the visit to the cemetery with SS graves as something incomprehensible that stunned the singer - Joey Ramone was a Jew. Text quote: "You're a politician, don't become one of Hitler's children." The singer ventured his outrage over Reagan's actions in a 1985 interview:

“What Reagan did was fucked up. […] How can you fuckin 'forgive the Holocaust?
How can you say 'Oh well, it's OK now?' That's crazy. "
(German, analogously: "What Reagan did there was totally wrong. [...] How the hell can you forgive
the Holocaust ? How can you say, Well, it's okay now? That's crazy.")

Guitarist Johnny Ramone, avowed supporter of the US Republicans , who called Reagan the "best president of our lives", protested against the publication of the piece on the album Animal Boy with the words "You can't call my president a monkey!" he only enforced a slight extension of the song title by adding My Brain is Hanging Upside Down , but the Ramones also played the song live. Johnny Ramone believed that his political views should be subordinate to music.

Bonzo Goes to Bitburg won the 1985 New York Music Awards “Best Independent Single” award .

Track list

  1. Somebody put Something in my Drink (Richie Ramone)
  2. Animal Boy (Dee Dee Ramone / Johnny Ramone)
  3. Love Kills (Dee Dee Ramone)
  4. Apeman Hop (Dee Dee Ramone)
  5. She Belongs to Me (Dee Dee Ramone / Jean Beauvoir)
  6. Crummy Stuff (Dee Dee Ramone)
  7. My Brain is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg) (Joey Ramone / Dee Dee Ramone / Jean Beauvoir)
  8. Mental Hell (Joey Ramone)
  9. Eat That Rat (Dee Dee Ramone / Johnny Ramone)
  10. Freak of Nature (Dee Dee Ramone / Johnny Ramone)
  11. Hair of the Dog (Joey Ramone)
  12. Something to Believe In (Dee Dee Ramone / Jean Beauvoir)

Single releases

  • Somebody put Something in my Drink / Something to Believe In (UK, April 1986)
  • Crummy Stuff / I Don't Want to live this Life (Anymore) (UK, July 1986)
  • Something to Believe In / Animal Boy (USA)

Video

To promote the album, the single Something to Believe In was shot in the music video Ramones Aid . The video parodies the fundraising campaign for the Live Aid benefit concert in July 1986 and the Hands Across America campaign initiated by the New York Times in May 1986 with the Ramones slogan "Hands Across Your Face" . The video shows a variety of absurd situations in which people hold hands, as well as a number of celebrity actors - including Weird Al Yankovic , The B-52s , Spinal Tap, and Ted Nugent - ironically calling for it, for a good cause called "Ramones Aid" to donate.

literature

  • Hey Ho Let's Go. The Story Of The Ramones by Everett True. Omnibus Press, London / New York 2002. ISBN 0-7119-9108-1 (English)
  • On the Road with the Ramones by Monte Melnick, Frank Meyer. Sanctuary Publishing Ltd., London 2003. ISBN 1-86074-514-8 (English)
  • Ramones - The Complete Twisted History by Dick Porter. Plexus Publishing Ltd., London 2004. ISBN 0-85965-326-9 (English)
  • Ramones - an American Band by Jim Bessman with the Ramones. St. Martin's Press, New York 1993. ISBN 0-312-09369-1 (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 205
  2. ↑ a b c Porter: Ramones - the Complete Twisted History , p. 122
  3. ↑ Interview with Dee Dee Ramone in the New Musical Express , quoted from Porter: Ramones - the Complete Twisted History , p. 205
  4. ↑ Bessman: Ramones - an American band , p 132
  5. ^ Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 212
  6. ↑ Quoted from Bessman: Ramones - an American Band , p. 135
  7. ↑ a b True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 209
  8. ↑ Quoted from Porter: Ramones - the Complete Twisted History , p. 123
  9. ↑ “[...] their first truly lousy album. ”- Quote from Dick Porter, in: Ramones - the Complete Twisted History , p. 123
  10. ^ Porter: Ramones - the Complete Twisted History , p. 123
  11. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 200
  12. ↑ Quoted from Bessman: Ramones - an American Band , p. 131
  13. ↑ From an interview with Joey Ramone in the US music magazine East Coast Rocker , quoted from True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 201
  14. ↑ "I thought Ronald Reagan was the best President of our lifetime." - Johnny Ramone, quoted from True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 201
  15. ↑ "You can't call my president a monkey!" - Johnny Ramone, quoted from Kris Needs in: Mojo Magazine , May 2011, p. 74.
  16. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 207
  17. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 208

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