release date: Apr. 23, 1976
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,18]
producer: Craig Leon with Tommy Ramone (associate producer)
label: Sire Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: A) 1. "Blitzkrieg Bop" (5 / 5) - 2. "Beat on the Brat" (4 / 5) - 3. "Judy Is a Punk" (5 / 5) - 4. "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" - 5. "Chain Saw" (3,5 / 5) - 6. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" (3,5 / 5) - 7. "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" (3,5 / 5) - - B) 1. "Loudmouth" (3,5 / 5) - 2. "Havana Affair" (4 / 5) - 3. "Listen to My Heart" (4 / 5) - 4. "53rd & 3rd" (3,5 / 5) - 5. "Let's Dance" (4 / 5) - 6. "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You" - 7. "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" (3,5 / 5)
Studio debut album by Ramones. This is a most legendary album. Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Ross Hyman) is lead vocalist, Johnny Ramone (John William Cummings) lead guitarist, Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin) handles bass and backing vocals, and Tommy Ramone (Thomas Erdelyi) plays drums. The band was formed in 1974, and they began playing a type of fast and simple rock early on, which initially was labelled 'bubblegum' but later when as the band had started playing at the CBGB with other artists of the new music scene in New York it eventually became known as punk rock. The album had only little commercial success but still Ramones were invited to play concerts in England, presumably because the label had consumers on both sides of the Atlantic, and Ramones initiated a tour in London, Jul. '76 where among others, members of Sex Pistols and The Clash attended several of their gigs. Not long after the tour, bands dedicated to punk rock sprung out all over England and a new musical wave had been ignited. Ramones were themselves inspired by primarily American proto punk artists from the early 1970s but are pinned out as the most influential band to the British punk rock wave, which reverberated back to the US and started a second wave in the motherland with a more aggressive sound that was labelled hardcore punk. In Britain a similar progression started at the same time, although, many other labels were at play like anarcho-punk, oi!, art punk, glam punk, psychobilly, and post-punk. Anyway, this album was launched in 1976. I didn't hear of it until around 1980 when punk rock had already been declared dead. No other artists sounded like this in '76 but many soon created music inspired by this, and it's really no wonder 'cause it's catchy, energetic and young at heart. The single tracks may sound much a like, but so does jazz, electronic or pop music, or a lot of other music. I think, for the devoted fans, the tracks are very different because you'll hear all the details and I'm still impressed. This is still positive, happy, and lots of fun. Maybe I should rate it higher but I feel they were slightly better later on. Anyway, quite logically it's enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". The album is still great and it contains modern classics like "Blitzkrieg Bop", "Beat on the Brat", "Judy Is a Punk", "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", and "Havana Affair" (although, their not all my personal favourites), but the music is at a stage of sketching up a style, and the variation is not all that broad. Hell, who gives a damn! Just hit it!
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, NME 5 / 5 stars ]
1976 Favourite releases: 1. Jean-Michel Jarre Oxygène - 2. Ramones Ramones - 3. Ennio Morricone Novecento (OST)
