Ramones (album)

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Ramones
Ramones studio album

Publication
(s)

April 23, 1976

Label (s) Sire Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Punk rock

Title (number)

14th

length

29:04

occupation
  • Rob Freeman - sound engineer, choral singing
  • Don Hunerburg - sound engineer
  • Arturo Vega - graphics, photography
  • Roberta Bayley - Photography

production

Craig Leon

Studio (s)

February 2-19, 1976,
Plaza Sound Studios , New York ;
Sterling Sound (Mastering)

chronology
- Ramones Leave Home
(1977)

Ramones is the debut album by the US punk band Ramones . It was first released on April 23, 1976 on the Sire Records label .

With its fast, minimalist pieces of music, it is considered to be groundbreaking for the development of punk rock music . With their debut album, the band Ramones established its reputation as a prototypical "three chords - Garage Band " with played at a fast pace, ironic, simply constructed songs. When the album was released, the majority of the critics reacted with disapproval or incomprehension. Its musical importance was only recognized in the late 1990s. In 2001 the album was reworked ( remastered ) by the record company Rhino Records and also provided with early demo recordings of the band and re-released on CD . Since then, the Ramones album has received several high placements in the best lists of the music press.

History of origin

The band Ramones performing live in Toronto on September 24th or 25th, 1976. Left to right: Johnny, Tommy (in the background), Joey and Dee Dee Ramone

prehistory

Since 1974 the band Ramones had made a name for themselves in New York City through regular live performances, mainly at the rock club CBGB and in the performance studio of drummer Tommy Ramone and the group's tour manager , Monte Melnick. The group had received positive reviews in the local press; in SoHo Weekly News , Trouser Press , New York Rocker and The Village Voice, among others . In addition, since a rock festival organized by the CBGB in July 1975, British music magazines such as the New Musical Express had reported positively on the New York underground music scene, and especially on the band Ramones. The band's concerts had already been attended several times by A&R employees from various record companies, but they were consistently undecided as to whether it would be possible to record the music of the band Ramones in the studio.

By the end of 1974 the band Ramones already had their first demo studio recordings with fifteen of their own pieces, which had been recorded and produced by Tommy Ramone in a studio in Long Island . The demo recordings cost the group about $ 1,000.

In February 1975 Tommy Ramone succeeded in persuading Danny Fields , who worked as a columnist for the music magazine Creem , to attend a Ramones live concert. Fields was a veteran of the music business; he had looked after the Doors as an employee of a record company and had been the manager of the bands The Stooges and MC5 . Fields said, retrospectively, “Tommy Ramone was persistent. […] He promoted his band with an effort that was amazing. ” During his first visit to a Ramones gig at the CBGB, Fields decided to become the group's manager. The band agreed - on the condition that he finance a new drum set. A few months later Fields was able to arrange an audition for the band Ramones at the record label Sire Records for June 23, 1975.

Sire Records was a small New York-based record company in the mid-1970s, run by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer . The label primarily had bands from Europe that were considered “progressive” under contract. After the band auditioned at Gottehrer, Sire spontaneously offered the band a contract to release a single with their piece You're Gonna Kill That Girl . The group and their manager Fields turned down the offer because they wanted to release an album. On the two days following the audition with Sire, the band Ramones auditioned for the record companies Blue Sky and Arista Records in order to get a record deal.

On September 19, 1975, the band recorded a second demo tape at New York's 914 Studios with two more pieces, Judy Is a Punk and I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend . These recordings, produced by the former manager of the New York Dolls , Marty Thau, were not edited afterwards, as the band wanted the most accurate reproduction of their live sound possible. Thau and Danny Fields sent the demo tapes to various record labels to get the group a deal to release an album. All the companies contacted sent the tapes back within a very short time; the irregular traces of rewinding indicated that no one had bothered to listen to more than the first 30 seconds of the recordings. When asked about the reason for the rejection, the Warner Brothers group replied with the reason that the group's music sounded like "bad Zeppelin" .

Despite the cancellation of the band Ramones in June 1975, Sire had not lost interest in the band, as Seymour Stein was convinced of their hit potential. Contributing to this was the advocacy of Craig Leon, A&R employee and producer at Sire, whom the band had already attracted positively several times before through their live appearances in the CBGB. After receiving the new demo recordings, six months of negotiations, led by Tommy Ramone, and after Gottehrer's departure from Sire, the band Ramones was finally signed by Sire Records in January 1976 and received an advance of US $ 20,000 from the label. The advance payment should finance the recording and production of her debut album as well as the purchase of new instruments and a PA speaker system for live performances. As a producer for the album, Craig Leon was hired; Due to his experience in the recording studio, drummer Tommy Ramone became an associate producer - under his real name T. (Tamás) Erdélyi.

Studio work

When the group first went into the studio to record an album on February 2, 1976, they had been playing together for two years. She had performed nearly 80 live, had a repertoire of around thirty pieces of her own, and had developed her own style and sound. Quote from Danny Fields: "The approach had long been established, the album only made the statement."

The recordings for the album took place at the instigation of Sire Records in the Plaza Sound Studios in Manhattan ; a studio complex on the eighth floor of New York's Radio City Music Hall building . The studio was set up in the 1930s for radio broadcasts from symphony orchestras and big bands and was also used for rehearsals by the revue dance group The Rockettes . This is where the Wurlitzer cinema organ was located , which producer Leon played when recording the piece Let's Dance . Leon described the size of the studio complex as huge and compared it to the size of EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London. Tommy Ramone confirmed the unusual dimensions of the premises for the band. Due to his dual role as drummer and production assistant, he was faced with particular communication problems, as his drum booth was separated from the control room with mixer and recording devices through three intervening rooms. All four band members were unfamiliar with the recording procedure suggested by Craig Leon in individually separated rooms according to the instruments, which only allowed communication between the musicians without visual contact and via headphones and microphones. Quote Tommy Ramone:

“We decided to go for separation. Johnny and his guitar were in the Rockettes' rehearsal room. Dee Dee and his bass were in another big room and I was in the radio announcers' room or whatever it was. I had to run across a football field size room to get to the control room. That hindered communication. "
(German: "We decided to split up. Johnny and his guitar were in the Rockettes' rehearsal room. Dee Dee and his bass were in another large room, and I was in the radio announcer's room - or whatever that was. Me Had to run through a room the size of a football field to get to the control room. That hampered communication. ")

The complete album Ramones was created in just 17 days in February 1976, of which only two days were needed for recording the instruments and another two for vocals and overdubs . In order to save expensive studio time, the band members refrained from listening to the audio tracks they had recorded immediately after the recording for control purposes and relied on the judgment of the sound engineers. The mixing of the recordings then took place in a 14-hour “marathon session”, so that the band members' studio work did not take more than a total of five days. In the studio, the band Ramones recorded the tracks on the album in the order in which they were made; a practice that the band should stick to on the following two albums. Quote from guitarist Johnny Ramone about the studio work on the album:

"We already had 30 to 35 songs, and we recorded them in the chronological order that we wrote them."
(German: "We already had 30 to 35 pieces, and we recorded them in the chronological order in which we had written them.")

According to producer Craig Leon, the production and mixing of the album are reminiscent of studio recordings by the Beatles from the early 1960s with simple four-track recorders. The guitars can be heard separately according to stereo channels - electric bass on the left, rhythm guitar on the right ; Drums and vocals are mixed in the middle of the stereo mix. When mixing the recordings, more modern methods such as overdubs and doubling of the vocal track were used. The production cost of the album, which was very low for its time, was only about US $ 6,400. Seymour Stein visited the band on their first day in the studio about three hours after they started recording to see their progress. Johnny Ramone, inexperienced known studio recordings and for his impatience, said, "Things are not going so well, we have only seven pieces ready." Narrated to is a comment stone:

"If everybody was like them, record companies would have no worries."
(German: "If all [bands] were like that, record companies wouldn't have any worries.")

Graphic design

The black and white photo on the front of the album cover was made by New York photographer Roberta Bayley , who made a name for herself with numerous photos of the local punk scene in the second half of the 1970s. The record company Sire had previously had another photographer take photos for a fee of US $ 2,000, but was dissatisfied with the results of his work. Bayley had initially taken her black and white photos for an article in New York's Punk Magazine when Sire offered to buy the rights to one of the photos for the album cover. The photographer's fee for the rights to the selected photo was US $ 125.

The posture of the band Ramones in the photo for their debut album shaped the style for the design of several of their album sleeves as well as for many other photos of the band. The four band members stand upright next to each other (here in front of a brick wall) and look into the camera with expressionless faces. The photos for the album title were taken on a vacant lot on E. 1st Street in New York's East Village , near the CBGB music club, where the band Ramones performed regularly at the time.

The photo on the back of the case shows a belt buckle with a US eagle and was made in a passport photo machine by Ramones friend, graphic artist and later light director Arturo Vega . Also from Vega comes the Ramones lettering in capital letters in the font Franklin Gothic Bold , which is common in the USA and which was the sole band logo up to and including their album End of the Century .

Reception and reviews

Due to its novelty in terms of music style and message - minimalist, very short pieces, played at high speed, combined with humorous lyrics - the debut album of the band Ramones was received by press and radio disc jockeys and music consumers with very mixed reactions, many of them negative failed: “[The album] 'The [sic] Ramones' sounds ridiculously simple today, back then the record was brutal and divided people's minds. "

One of the most positive reviews comes from the US music journalist Robert Christgau , who gave the album the top rating “A” in his review in The Village Voice magazine and wrote that the album “blows everything else off the radio. [...] Simply perfect, a little classic. ” The verdict of the US music magazine Rolling Stone was also positive . In the July 1976 issue of the magazine, reviewer Paul Nelson praised the band Ramones as "authentic American primitives whose work must be heard to be understood." He expressed his hope that "these guys [will] sell more albums than they do ." Elton John Pennies has “ .

Radio DJ Vin Scelsa from US broadcaster WNEW-FM was one of the first to put the album on their show: “I was one of those old hippie DJs. [...] I was keen to hear the Ramones. So I put the record on, played Blitzkrieg bop, and the track went into the next one without a break, and then immediately into the third song. […] I took the plate from the middle of the plate and threw it across the room. ” “ I said over the microphone: 'What is this rubbish for? What is this noise about? '”A few days later, however, Scelsa revised his judgment: “ I said I was totally wrong with the Ramones. This is a great new, revolutionary rock band. " His British DJ colleague John Peel was initially unsure whether he should play the album on his show: " I had n't heard anything harsh and aggressive since Little Richard , [...] it was so scary and crazy. "

Later Ramones producer and studio guitarist Daniel Rey first heard the Ramones album at the age of fifteen: “[…] when we first listened to the album, we couldn't stop laughing - it was so fast and it did not give guitar solos. [...] Already in the following week we couldn't listen to anything else. " " It made half of our record collections obsolete. "

In the UK's New Musical Express (NME) magazine, critic Nick Kent wrote in his positive review that the Ramones album was “a lesson in successfully recording hard rock,” to add, “The Ramones don't say much. […] But they rock with vehemence. ” His NME colleague Max Bell came to a completely different conclusion: “ The Ramones are more of a joke than a rock band. […] Their charisma is completely negative based on their ineptitude and indifference. ” In the British music magazine Melody Maker , music journalist Allan Jones described the music of the band Ramones as “ grimly retarded ” and “ with a narrow-minded emphasis on violently expressed nihilism ” . One reviewer described the album as "The sound of 10,000 toilets" . British author Jon Savage, according to "accelerate [...] the first album of Ramones a generation English musician. The competitive pressure to found punk bands increased. "

The mixed reactions to the album Ramones led the New Yorker magazine Trouser Press to years later published conclusion: "Like all cultural watersheds was Ramones [initially] revered by few clairvoyants and dismissed from the unsuspecting majority as a bad joke. Now it [the album] is undoubtedly a classic. ” Drummer and co-producer Tommy Ramone rated the album in 2011, 35 years after its first release, as“ […] completely unique in sound. "And described it as " an oddly lo-fi work of art. "

Achievements and Awards

The Ramones album received increased attention and recognition only years after its initial release. In 1976, when it was released , the album had sold around 6,000 units, only reaching number 111 on the US Billboard charts . It was not until 1992 that the US music magazine Rolling Stone counted the design of the Ramones cover among the "100 Best Record Covers " (100 Greatest Album Covers) in rock music.

But only since the beginning of the 21st century, about 25 years after its release and years after the breakup of the group Ramones, the importance of the album for the development of the music genre punk rock was recognized by the music press and the music industry. Since then, Ramones has received several awards. The US music magazine Spin started in 2001 in its special issue 25 Years of Punk with a list of The 50 Most Essential Punk Records . The album Ramones is number one there. In 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine published its list of the " 500 best albums of all time " for the first time . The Ramones album is 33rd.

Since 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine has listed the album's opening track, Blitzkrieg Bop , at number 92 on its list of the “ 500 Best Songs of All Time ”. The song is also number 18 on the magazine's “ The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” list. In 2005 the English music magazine Mojo took the piece Blitzkrieg Bop into its list of the " 50 Greatest US Punk Tracks " (50 Greatest US Punk Tracks) .

In 2012 the album Ramones was entered into the National Recording Registry of the US Library of Congress . It ranks 21st among the entries from the same year.

The pieces of music on the album

The order of the 14 songs on the Ramones album was selected by the band and producer Craig Leon with the aim of reproducing the dramaturgy of a live concert by the band Ramones as much as possible under studio conditions. The lyrics of the first four compositions already reflect the whole range of themes on the album - sarcastic humor, depictions of violence - or at least their suggestion - satirical considerations of the American way of life as well as romantic love songs. Some critics therefore regard these first four pieces as "mini-album within the album".

Blitzkrieg Bop

Simplified excerpt from Blitzkrieg Bop audio sample ? / iAudio file / audio sample

The title and text of the opening track of the first Ramones album, Blitzkrieg Bop , play ironically with the word Blitzkrieg - the term for a warlike surprise attack with all available military forces - which was used as a German loan word in the English language as early as the thirties of the twentieth century had been adopted ( Germanism ). The word Blitzkrieg is not used in the band's lyrics in the actual military sense, but applied to an unspecified youth culture (“the kids”) that “pulsates to the back beat” . The noun Bop has American US in slang ( Slang ) both the meanings "blow", "Collision" and "drug in pill form" and a reference to in the 1940s in return for the established at the time of music Swing resulting jazz style bebop .

Blitzkrieg Bop is a collaboration between drummer Tommy Ramone and bassist Dee Dee Ramone, who grew up in Germany. The composition was started by Tommy Ramone under the working title Animal Hop , as the band members were convinced at the beginning of their careers that they had to have a " cheerleading number" like the piece Saturday Night by the Bay City Rollers in their repertoire. Dee Dee Ramone later changed the title to Blitzkrieg Bop against the resistance of the drummer , and the line “they're shouting in the back now” became a more appropriate “shoot” for the changed title 'em in the back now ” rephrased. The changes introduced by the bassist were criticized by Tommy Ramone, himself of Jewish origin, decades later with the accusation: "He wanted to do the Nazi thing so that it [the song] would never be played on the radio!"

The song Blitzkrieg Bop contains the battle cry “Hey ho, let's go!”, Which should become a slogan and identification mark of the band Ramones and their fans. The piece, written in 4/4 time like the rest of the band's work , begins instrumentally - electric guitar and electric bass played in unison , as well as drums - with the ascending chords of A major, D major and E major. After eight bars, the guitar and bass stop briefly, and the battle cry, called four times by singer Joey Ramone and bassist Dee Dee Ramone, begins, accompanied only by the drums of the drums for two bars. After a further bar, the bass and guitar start again one after the other, and after a total of four bars the first vocal verse begins. The four bars with the battle cry are repeated in the same way at the end of the piece. According to the memoirs of Joey Ramone's younger brother, Mickey Leigh, he was involved in the recording of the album Ramones as a background singer for Blitzkrieg Bop , but was not mentioned by name on any of the releases of the piece.

As a promotional measure for the single release with Blitzkrieg Bop , the record company Sire Records used miniature baseball bats, which were distributed to the audience at concerts by the band Ramones. The giveaways were labeled Ramones: A Hit On Sire Records in the US, or Blitzkrieg Bop in the UK.

Band biographer Everett True rates Blitzkrieg Bop as "one of the catchiest songs of all songs from the punk era" . The battle cry Hey ho, let's go! was taken over by the New York Yankees baseball team in the 1990s and played at Yankee Stadium before their home games . In the summer of 1991, Blitzkrieg Bop was the first composition by the band Ramones to be used in a commercial by the US brewery Anheuser-Busch Companies to advertise their Budweiser Bud Light beer brand on US television . The band's royalties for using the piece were approximately US $ 100,000. Blitzkrieg Bop is also featured on the soundtrack for the video game Rock Band and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 .

Beat on the Brat

Beat on the Brat is the only track on the album whose lyrics are not written in first person perspective . Joey Ramone said that the composition was inspired by observing spoiled children in a playground in his neighborhood in Forest Hills, Queens , New York . These children were so straining on the singer's nerves that he thought of getting rid of them with a baseball bat . The chord change in Beat on the Brat is borrowed from the 1968 bubblegum chart hit Yummy Yummy Yummy by the band Ohio Express .

Judy is a punk

Judy Is a Punk is - after The Punk and the Godfather by The Who on the album Quadrophenia (1973) - as the second piece of music in the history of rock music whose title contains the word "punk". The lyrics, created in 1974, describe two juvenile offenders who both escape to Berlin and San Francisco - the latter to join the terrorist organization SLA - and who may be killed in the process. The lines “Second verse, same as the first” or “Third verse, different from the first” (German: “Second verse same as the first” and “Third verse different from the first”) inserted between the three stanzas are direct Copied from the track I'm Henry the VIII, I Am , a number one hit by Herman's Hermits in the US in 1965 . These lines are an unusual break in the narrative perspective for the lyrics of the band Ramones - they are fiction that breaks out of the scope to portray itself as fiction. Nicholas Rombes describes this meta-perspective in his analysis of the album as "both line in a song and song line over a line in a song".

With a playing time of one minute and 32 seconds, Judy Is a Punk is the shortest piece on the Ramones album and one of the shortest compositions by the band at all (in the studio version; when performing live, the band always played their repertoire at a faster pace See also the article on the Ramones live album It's Alive ).

I want to be your boyfriend

The slowest and only romantically tinged piece on the album was composed by Tommy Ramone and is the only one on Ramones whose lyrics show no traces of humor, irony or violence. The song, which looks like an homage to love songs in 1960s pop, includes choral singing by producer Craig Leon and engineer Rob Freeman, as well as elements from glockenspiel . On the recording for the debut album, guitarist Johnny Ramone played a Fender Stratocaster instead of the Mosrite Ventures II electric guitar he mainly used . According to Dee Dee Ramone, the Bay City Rollers had shown interest in recording their own version of I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend , but this did not materialize.

Chainsaw

The piece is inspired by the band Ramones' predilection for horror films, namely the US horror film from 1974, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , which is also mentioned several times in the lyrics. Otherwise indicating when the song title is in the intro of the piece to listening tool no chain saw (Chainsaw) , but a circular saw.

Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

The minimalist lyrics, consisting of only four lines, are about adolescent boredom and inhaling the solvent vapors contained in glue . When asked about the authenticity of the text, Dee Dee Ramone replied in an interview: “I hope nobody thinks that we are really sniffing glue. I stopped when I was eight [years old] . "

With Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue , the band Ramones made it into the headlines of the daily press for the first time outside the USA - on the front page of a Scottish newspaper. On August 19, 1976, the Glasgow Evening Times headlined under a picture of the album cover: “Glue Sniff Disc Shocker” (German: “Klebeschnüffel-Plattenschocker”). The paper reported on efforts by Scottish MP James Dempsey to have the sale of the Ramones album banned after a number of youth deaths in Glasgow as a result of inhalation of adhesive vapors. As it turned out, these were unrelated to the song by the band Ramones.

After several tracks by the band, the title of which begins with "I Don't Wanna ..." (German: "I don't want ..."), Tommy Ramone now described I Wanna Sniff Some Glue as "the first positive song we wrote" .

One of the first and most famous punk fanzines was named after the song Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue , the British Sniffin 'Glue by London bank clerk Mark Perry, first published in September 1976 .

I don't wanna go down to the basement

Another minimalist piece inspired by horror films, the entire text of which consists of only three lines, based on only three major chords, and which is the longest piece on the album with a playing time of two minutes and 35 seconds.

Loudmouth

Loudmouth (German: "Grossmaul") with six major chords is the most harmonically complex piece on the album. His text consists - depending on the reading and punctuation - only of a single line or of four very brief lines.

Havana Affair

Havana Affair is inspired by the comic strip Spy vs. Spy (in the German version: Spion & Spion ) by the Cuban-born cartoonist Antonio Prohias of the satirical magazine Mad and ironically describes the story of a Cuban banana picker who was trained to be a CIA spy. Mickey Leigh and Craig Leon added percussion effects to the studio recording for the debut album , which was not mentioned in the text accompanying the releases of the album.

Listen to My Heart

The song is one of the first of many in the repertoire of the band Ramones, which deals with failed or already failed human love relationships from an ironic-pessimistic perspective.

53rd & 3rd

Street signs at the intersection of East 53rd Street and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan

The text of this composition by Dee Dee Ramone is about a male prostitute ("stick boy") who waits in vain for suitors on the street in Midtown Manhattan on the corner of Fifty- Third Street (53rd Street) and Third Avenue because his appearance is too threatening. When he finally gets a customer anyway, he murders him with a razor to prove he is not homosexual.

There are contradicting statements about the authenticity and autobiographical coloring of the lyrics, both from the author himself and from his contemporaries. In some interviews, Dee Dee Ramone described the piece as autobiographical: “The song speaks for itself; everything I write is autobiographical and very real. I can't write any other way . ” , While in other conversations he denies the autobiographical character of the text. The book author Legs McNeil, on the other hand, repeatedly claimed in interviews that he saw the musician standing around on this street corner, then known as a street prostitute in Manhattan. Band manager Danny Fields indirectly supported this statement by saying that he could not imagine that Dee Dee Ramone ever worked as a full-time hustler.

53rd & 3rd is the first piece in the repertoire of the band Ramones with a contribution from the bassist as the lead singer. He sings the verse of the song in which the murder is mentioned.

Let's dance

In Let's Dance , an interpretation of the composition by Chris Montez from 1962 and the only cover version on the album, Craig Leon plays the Wurlitzer cinema organ located in the Plaza Sound Studio, which can be heard in the last bars of the piece.

I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You

I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You consists of just two lines of text and three major chords. It is one of the earliest joint compositions by the band members. According to Johnny Ramone, the song was written at the band's very first rehearsal in early 1974; along with a similar track previously unreleased by the band, I Don't Wanna Get Involved With You . Former Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone's EP , Dee Dee Ramone ICLC, was released in 1994 as compact disc and contains a track entitled I Don't Wanna Get Involved With You . The assumption that this song, whose sole author Dee Dee Ramone is named, is the early Ramones composition of the same title seems obvious.

Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

When recording the last track on the album, there were conflicts between the band and Sire owner Seymour Stein. The title and text of the song, written by Dee Dee Ramone, who grew up in Germany, contain satirical references to National Socialism . The lyrics include the line “I'm a Nazi baby; I'm a Nazi yes I am. I'm a Nazi shatzi, y'know I fight for the Fatherland ” . Stein, of Jewish faith, initially considered this to be unacceptable - although Joey Ramone, who sang the line of text, was himself a Jew and did not consider the line of the song to be offensive. Stein explained that the lyrics had disturbed him personally. However, he was convinced that the Nazi references were meant to be satirical and eventually agreed to publish the piece on the album. The band members defused some parts of the lyrics for the album version; in the case of live performances - the band regularly played the piece as the last song on their live program - the original text was retained.

In their books about the band Today Your Love, Legs McNeil and Dick Porter interpret Tomorrow the World as an attempt by the band to counteract and express the "niceness" of the 1970s (particularly prominently represented by the smiley face, according to McNeil ) “We refuse to be nice” or “we want to shock”. Mickey Leigh points out in his biography of his older brother Joey Ramone that the song caricatures a “weak German child” and should give an insight into “the typical mental attitude of a member of the Hitler Youth ”, “brilliantly summarized in two lines”.

Track list

All compositions by the band Ramones, unless otherwise stated.

First edition 1976

  1. Blitzkrieg Bop - 2:14
  2. Beat on the Brat - 2:31
  3. Judy Is a Punk - 1:32
  4. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend - 2:24
  5. Chain Saw - 1:56
  6. Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue - 1:35
  7. I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement - 2:38
  8. Loudmouth - 2:14
  9. Havana Affair - 1:56
  10. Listen to My Heart - 1:58
  11. 53rd & 3rd - 2:21
  12. Let's Dance (Jim Lee) - 1:51
  13. I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You - 1:42
  14. Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World - 2:12

Additional titles on the 2001 re-release

  1. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend - 1:43
  2. Judy Is a Punk - 1:37
  3. I Don't Care - 1:55
  4. I Can't Be - 1:57
  5. Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue - 1:42
  6. I Don't Wanna Be Learned / I Don't Wanna Be Tamed - 1:03
  7. You Should Never Have Opened That Door - 1:54
  8. Blitzkrieg Bop - 2:12
Remarks
  1. ↑ a b Demo recording, produced by Marty Thau, recorded on September 19, 1975 at 914 Studios , New York City
  2. ↑ a b c d e Demo recording, produced by T. Erdélyi, recorded at Performance Studios , New York City. Sound engineer: Jack Malken
  3. ↑ a b First published on the sampler Ramones - All The Stuff (And More) Volume One , Sire Records / Warner Bros. Records 1990
  4. ↑ Single version, July 1976

Single releases

  • Blitzkrieg Bop / Havana Affair (July 1976, Sire 6078 601)
  • In some countries I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend was also released as a single.

Cover versions

There are a number of cover versions of the compositions on the Ramones album ; including some from successful rock bands such as Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and U2, some of whose members cite the band Ramones as a musical influence. In addition to reinterpretations of the songs by Ramones in various styles of rock genre such as heavy metal and rockabilly , the pieces on the album were also interpreted in other musical styles - for example as bossa nova , as dub reggae and as lullabies for children ( lullaby ) .

Rock music versions

Die Toten Hosen recorded a version of Blitzkrieg Bop for their punk tribute album Learning English Lesson One , released in 1991 , with Joey Ramone and Richard Manitoba from The Dictators as singers.

The 1991 Ramones tribute album Gabba Gabba Hey contains a total of five cover versions of the Ramones album :

  • Blast - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
  • Creamers - 53rd & 3rd
  • Flesh Eaters - I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement
  • Motorcycle Boy - Loudmouth
  • Pigmy Love Circus - Beat on the Brat

In 1992, the US punk band Screeching Weasel recorded their own version of the entire debut album by the band Ramones and released the cover versions as an album under their own name, also with the title Ramones . The order of the pieces from the original has been retained. In the photo of the album cover, the members of Screeching Weasel recreate the cover photo of the Ramones album.

For his solo album Greatest & Latest , released in 2000 , ex-band member Dee Dee Ramone recorded new versions of Ramones compositions, including the songs Blitzkrieg Bop and Beat on the Brat from the album Ramones . On his 2003 posthumously released live album Too Tough to Die Live in NYC there is a version of 53rd & 3rd .

The Ramones tribute album We're a Happy Family , released in 2003, contains five cover versions of songs from the debut album:

Other genres of music

  • A version of Blitzkrieg Bop sung by a children's choir is included on the Ramones tribute album Brats On The Beat: Ramones For Kids , released by Go-Kart Records in 2006 .
  • Tommy Ramone regularly played an acoustic guitar version of his own composition I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend with his bluegrass duo Uncle Monk in live performances .
  • In 2007 the album Rockabye Baby was released on Baby Rock Records . Lullaby Renditions of the Ramones . It features lullaby versions of Blitzkrieg Bop , Beat on the Brat and Judy Is a Punk , orchestrated with glockenspiel and accordion , among others .

literature

  • Jim Bessman: Ramones - an American Band . St. Martin's Press, New York 1993. ISBN 0-312-09369-1 (English).
  • Mickey Leigh with Legs McNeil: I Slept With Joey Ramone - A Family Memoir . Autobiography of the younger brother of Ramones singer Joey Ramone, Mickey Leigh. Touchstone / Simon & Schuster, New York 2009. ISBN 978-0-7432-5216-4 .
  • Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain: Please Kill Me - the uncensored story of punk . Hannibal, Höfen 2004, ISBN 3-85445-237-3 . Standard work on the history of US punk from 1967 to 1992, German-language edition.
  • Monte Melnick, Frank Meyer: On the Road with the Ramones . Sanctuary Publishing Ltd., London 2003. ISBN 1-86074-514-8 (English).
  • Mojo - The Music Magazine , November 2005 Issue, pp. 72-80: Thirty Years of the Ramones . Article about the early days of the band, with a description of the making of the debut album and photos of the studio work. Published by Emap Performance Ltd., 2005 (English).
  • Dick Porter: Ramones: The Complete Twisted History . Plexus Publishing Ltd. 2004, ISBN 0-85965-326-9 (English).
  • Johnny Ramone: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone . Abrams Image, New York 2012. ISBN 978-0-8109-9660-1 (English).
  • Tommy Ramone: All revved up and ready to go! Article about the making of the album in Mojo - The Music Magazine , Issue 210, May 2011, pp. 76-77. Publisher: Emap Performance Ltd., 2011 (English).
  • Nicholas Rombes: Ramones (published in the paperback series "33 1/3". Describes the history and content of the album in detail). Continuum International Publishing Group, New York / London 2005. ISBN 0-8264-1671-3 (English).
  • Rock Classics special issue No. 2, 2009/2010: Ramones - 35 years of punk cult . Slam Media Verlag, Vienna 2009.
  • SPIN Magazine Vol. 17, No. 5, May 2001: 25 Years of Punk . With detailed articles on the beginnings of the band Ramones and their debut album. Vibe / Spin Ventures, New York 2001. ISSN  0886-3032 (English).
  • Everett True: Hey Ho Let's Go - The Story Of The Ramones . Omnibus Press 2002, ISBN 0-7119-9108-1 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 282: Tour Dates
  2. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p. 9, p. 32 ff.
  3. ↑ Jon Savage: England's Dreaming - Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock , p. 119. Abridged German-language edition, Edition Tiamat published by Klaus Bittermann Verlag, Berlin 2001. ISBN 3-89320-045-2 .
  4. ↑ a b c Porter: Ramones - The Complete Twisted History , p. 37.
  5. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 36: Excerpts from an interview with Tommy Ramone
  6. ↑ a b c Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 62 f.
  7. ↑ “ Tommy Ramone was relentless […] He promoted his band with a joy that was astonishing. "Quoted and translated from True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 44.
  8. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 45.
  9. ↑ a b True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 47.
  10. ↑ Rock Classics, p. 108: Sire Records & Co. - The early business partners .
  11. ↑ a b c True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 51 f.
  12. ↑ a b Interview with Tommy Ramone on Birth of the Ramones on rollingstone.com , accessed July 17, 2014
  13. ↑ a b c Mojo magazine, November 2005 issue, p. 77 ff.
  14. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , pp. 50 f.
  15. ↑ Play on words with the name of the rock band Led Zeppelin : "We called Warner Bros. and they said that we sounded like bad Zeppelin." - Johnny Ramone, in: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone, p. 51
  16. ↑ a b Porter: Ramones - The Complete Twisted History , p. 43.
  17. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p. 67
  18. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p. 5 f.
  19. ↑ a b c d Jon Savage: England's Dreaming - Anarchie, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock , p. 143 f.
  20. ^ Mojo Music Magazine, Issue 210, May 2011 Issue, p. 76.
  21. ↑ a b c True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 53.
  22. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 54.
  23. ↑ “ We decided to try separation on the instruments. Craig Leon was looking for that. So we put everyone in different rooms, […] we had no communication except through headphones; […] ”- Tommy Ramone in: Mojo Music Magazine, Issue 210, May 2011 issue, p. 76.
  24. ^ Johnny Ramone: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone, p. 152
  25. ↑ “[…] and then we did a 14-hour marathon mix session. I don't think it was more than five days altogether. ”- Tommy Ramone in: Mojo Music Magazine, Issue 210, May 2011 issue, p. 76.
  26. ↑ Johnny Ramone: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone, p. 54
  27. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p. 71 f.
  28. ↑ “We did a lot of overdubbing and double-tracked vocals, going for a bizarre emulation of the recording values ​​of 'A Hard Days Night'. The stereo image was inspired by that as well. " Quoted from Rombes: Ramones , p. 73: Interview with Craig Leon, 2004.
  29. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , S. 69th
  30. ↑ "Things aren't going so great, we only got seven tracks down." - Johnny Ramone, quoted and translated from True, p. 53.
  31. ↑ Lifestyles Of The Ramones , interview with Seymour Stein. DVD-Video, Videolar S / A , Sao Paulo, DVDS-065. Time Code : 00:26:38
  32. ↑ Porter: Ramones - The Complete Twisted History , p. 52.
  33. ↑ a b c Rombes: Ramones , p. 75.
  34. ↑ a b Bessman: Ramones - an American Band , p. 47.
  35. ^ Excerpts from a review by Robert Christgau, quoted and translated from Bessman, p. 55
  36. ↑ Quoted and translated from True, p. 58.
  37. ↑ Vin Scelsa, quoted from Porter, p. 57.
  38. ↑ Vin Scelsa, quoted and translated from Bessman: Ramones - an American Band , p. 53.
  39. ↑ “I'd never heard anything as abrupt or confrontational since Little Richard. […] It was so scary and mad ” - John Peel, quoted from Porter, p. 56 f.
  40. ^ Daniel Rey, quoted and translated from True, p. 58.
  41. ↑ Daniel Rey in an interview in Ramones RAW , DVD-Video. Ramones Productions Inc., 2004.
  42. ↑ Quoted and translated from True, p. 68.
  43. ^ Quoted in extracts and translated from True, p. 69
  44. ↑ Quoted in extracts and translated from True, p. 70.
  45. ^ Translated from Porter, p. 58.
  46. ↑ “[…] that album was totally unique in its sound. In a strange way, it's a lo-fi work of art. ”- Tommy Ramone in Mojo - The Music Magazine , Issue 210, May 2011, p. 77.
  47. ↑ a b True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 55.
  48. ↑ SPIN Magazine Vol. 17, No. 5, May 2001: 25 Years of Punk , p. 100. Vibe / Spin Ventures, New York 2001. ISSN  0886-3032
  49. ^ Mojo Magazine, November 2005 Issue, p. 86.
  50. ↑ The Ramones album on the Library of Congress website (accessed March 22, 2013)
  51. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , S. 84th
  52. ^ Richard A. Spears: Dictionary - Contemporary American Slang . Orbis Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-572-00581-7 .
  53. ↑ “We knew we needed a 'chant' song, because the Bay City Rollers had 'Saturday Night'” (Johnny Ramone) and “I wrote Blitzkrieg Bop, but […] it was called 'Animal Hop', […] sort of a cheerleading type of song. " (Tommy Ramone), quoted from Spin Magazine: 25 Years of Punk , p. 94.
  54. ↑ a b True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 59
  55. ↑ Stephen Lee Beeber: A Jewish American Band - The Hebraic Foundations of the Ramones . Chapter on the band's Jewish roots, in: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s , pp. 103 ff. Chicago Review Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1-55652-761-6
  56. ↑ "He [Dee Dee Ramone] wanted to do the Nazi thing, so that it would never get played on the radio!" - Tommy Ramone, quoted from Leigh: I slept with Joey Ramone, p. 121.
  57. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p 77
  58. ↑ a b Leigh: I Slept With Joey Ramone , p. 131 ff.
  59. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 68
  60. ↑ Porter: Ramones - The Complete Twisted History , p. 49.
  61. ↑ “[…] one of the catchiest of all the punk-era songs. ”- Everett True in: The Story of the Ramones , p. 59.
  62. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 322.
  63. ↑ “It's funny, I originally wanted to be a ballplayer, and now they play 'Blitzkrieg Bop' at a lot of the parks. They play it at Yankee Stadium all the time. " - Johnny Ramone, in: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone, p. 152
  64. ^ Leigh: I Slept With Joey Ramone , pp. 287 ff.
  65. ↑ “The kind of kid you just want to kill. You know, 'beat on the brat with a baseball bat' just came out. " - Joey Ramone, quoted from Rombes: Ramones , p. 79.
  66. ↑ a b c d e True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 60.
  67. ↑ "'Second verse, same as the first' is both a line in a song and a line in a song about a line in a song." - Quote from Nicholas Rombes in: Ramones , p. 83.
  68. ↑ The Guitars of Johnny Ramone: The White Stratocaster (accessed November 5, 2009)
  69. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , S. 83rd
  70. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , p. 85
  71. ↑ “I hope they don't really think we sniff glue. I quit when I was eight. " - Dee Dee Ramone, quoted in True, p. 71.
  72. ↑ Spin Magazine - 25 Years of Punk , p. 96: Illustration of the newspaper title page with the headline
  73. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 71.
  74. ↑ Savage: England's Dreaming , p. 182 f.
  75. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , S. 86th
  76. ↑ Rombes: Ramones , S. 88th
  77. ↑ a b McNeil: Please Kill Me , p. 215.
  78. ^ "The song speaks for itself, everything I write is autobiographical and very real. I can't write any other way. " - Dee Dee Ramone, quoted and translated from Porter, p. 50.
  79. ↑ Film interview with Dee Dee Ramone in End of the Century - The Story of the Ramones , DVD-Video. Rhino / Warner Music Vision 2005.
  80. ↑ Porter: Ramones - The Complete Twisted History , p. 54.
  81. ^ True: The Story of the Ramones , p. 23.
  82. ↑ Dee Dee Ramone: ICLC Rough Trade Records / World Service in 1994, RTD 157.1756.3.
  83. ↑ Text line from Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World, quoted from Mickey Leigh: I Slept with Joey Ramone, p. 133. German translation: “I am a Nazi, baby; I'm a Nazi, yeah I am a Nazi sweetheart, you know, I fight for the fatherland "
  84. ↑ a b McNeil: Please Kill Me , p. 281.
  85. ↑ a b Mickey Leigh: I Slept with Joey Ramone, p. 133 f.
  86. ↑ Johnny Ramone: Commando: the autobiography of Johnny Ramone, p. 53
  87. ↑ The original version of Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World is included on the Ramones live album It's Alive , recorded in 1977 and first released on Sire Records .
  88. ↑ Bessman: Ramones - an American Band , p. 192 (band discography)
  89. ↑ Article Ramones (Screeching Weasel) in the English language Wikipedia
  90. ↑ Article Greatest & Latest in the English language Wikipedia
  91. ↑ Article Too Tough to Die Live in NYC in the English language Wikipedia
  92. ↑ Article We're a Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones in the English language Wikipedia
  93. ↑ Review of Brats On The Beat: Ramones For Kids ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the German-language music magazine Whiskey Soda (accessed on November 28, 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.whiskey-soda.de
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on February 7, 2010 in this version .