Black Cat Bone

Album Leave Home (but I'm cheating as I'm allowing the extended version with added live Roxy numbers to push it to the top of my list).

Song Danny Says... perhaps the sweetest thing they ever did.

Album- Rocket To Russia. The songs are all great, it's a tad better production that the first two, and there are some examples of branching out.

Song- Far too many to choose just one. Blitzkrieg Bop, Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?, Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, Today Your Love Tommorrow The World, Howling At The Moon, Cretin Hop. it's next to impossible for me.

Ad yes, perhaps they didn't really add anything that wasn't already there. But what they did do was put all together in the perfect way.

They're just a great, great band. They continue to live on as one of my favourites.

Album: Rocket To Russia
Song: Blitzkrieg Bop

The Donut Kid wrote:I like 'em more than listen to 'em. They don't move me at all. But they were great.

That's about the gist of it.
Album: 'Rocket To Russia'
Song: 'Bonzo Goes To Bitburg'

album: Rocket to Russia
song: Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

For me, it's all about the widescreen minimalism (and it's not as much of a contradiction in terms a you'd first imagine) of Rocket to Russia. By this stage, absolutely everything about their formula was perfected- the look, the sound (it smooths some of the debut's edges without losing any of its bite), the songs- it's easily their "poppiest," most enjoyable release, and all the better to it. Practically everything on this is a killer- "Rockaway Beach," "Sheena is a Punk Rocker," "Cretin Hop" and the glorious closer "Why Is It Always This Way?" which brings the whole thing to a celebratory full stop. Also worth noting is that Rhino's reissues of the first 4 LPs are all worth purchasing- great extra tracks (in the case of Leave Home an entire Live Set, recorded in 1977), sound and, when Legs McNeil isn't writing them, liner notes.

Actually as an aside, has Legs McNeil always been a prick? Everything I've seen or read of his (the Ramones End of A Century Doc, Don Letts' Punk film, that book Please Kill Me, etc) he comes accross as an obnoxious blowhard. Shame, really- David Fricke's linernotes for the Hey Ho! Let's Go! Anthology are exemplary. Now there's a man who really knows his stuff.

There's absolutely no need to purchase anything by them after the first four (Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin) but those are all pretty startling (...Ruin less so, but still worthwhile) in their sense of self, their wit and just the sheer noise. Like Leg of Lamb, I think they were best when they were at their most pop- their shameless would-be Spectorisms (before they actually hired Spector, of course) are some of the tracks that still have the most vibrancy today.

Regardless of whether one is a fan or not, the doco is essential viewing. It's a fascinating portrayal of a band's persistance in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and sheer denial, really. The fact that neither Johnny or Joey actually spoke to each other during their last 15 (!) years of existence as a band is startling enough in itself. They really were quite the dysfunctional lot, yet their music was supertight to the point where it eventually became a complete straitjacket.

If ever a band encapsulated a genre's sheer thrill and appeal (the first three LPs, plus most of the fourth) and its evident limitations (everything subsequently, by and large), it's the Ramones.

album: Leave home
song: She's the one