Happy 45th Anniversary to the Ramones’ eponymous debut album Ramones, originally released April 23, 1976.
All you need to do is hear the first twenty seconds of the Ramones self-titled debut album and you can't help singing the words "Hey, ho, let's go" four times. You are then left with no other choice but to start singing along to "Blitzkrieg Bop," one of the best opening tracks on any album.
Who knew that three chords could pack such a wallop? If I were to time travel back to 1976 and tell the Ramones that "Blitzkrieg Bop" would be played by high school bands and at many sporting events for the next 45 years, they wouldn't believe me. I can barely believe that those four guys from Forest Hills, Queens would record one of the most influential punk records on both sides of the Atlantic.
The band, which formed in 1974, consisted of lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, bassist Dee Dee Ramone, and drummer Tommy Ramone. Each member took on the surname Ramone and the inspiration for the name was an alias Paul McCartney (Paul Ramon) would use when checking into hotels.
By mid-1974, the Ramones were playing gigs at various clubs throughout New York City with CBGB and Max's Kansas City being the most prominent venues. They constantly played gigs throughout 1975 and later that year, former Stooges manager Danny Fields took on the same role with the group. His first order of business was to shop around their demo, featuring "Judy Is a Punk" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" to different labels. Producer Craig Leon took up the cause and brought the demo to Sire Records president Seymour Stein, who eventually signed them to the label.
In February 1976, the Ramones began recording their debut album in Plaza Sound Studios where the Rockettes rehearsed, located right above Radio City Music Hall. With a budget of $6,400 and very little time in the studio, they had to get very creative. In a 2016 Observer article, Leon remembered, “When we went into the studio, Tommy and I had a lot of conversations beforehand. A lot of the ‘mythos’ of the Ramones has them just appearing one night, and someone seeing them live someplace and signing them and putting them in the studio the next day. Well, that’s a very nice fantasy, and very Hollywood, but it’s not true.”
Over the years, there was always this prevailing thought that the Ramones' punk masterpiece was just haphazardly slapped together, but nothing could be further from the truth. The organized chaos was meticulously mapped out. They used overdubs to give a slight echo effect on Joey's vocals, tape delay, and creative microphone placement to produce different sound effects like a bomb going off, which was used on "Havana Affair." They also recorded guitar and bass on separate tracks to create a similar effect you would hear on early Beatles records. You can hear it on the Beatles' "No Reply" and the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," which features Joey channeling the cadence of Ronnie Spector. I can almost hear her singing the lyrics, "Hey, little girl / I want to be your boyfriend / Sweet little girl / I want to be your boyfriend." Of course, the times being what they were, Phil Spector would have reversed the genders.
Ramones ran opposite of everything played on the radio in that era. There were no guitar solos, overblown six-minute songs from hell, or causes to sing about. It was part Beatles, part Brill Building, mixed with ‘60s garage music played at 180 MPH. While it was not commercially successful, the Ramones debut LP received much deserved critical acclaim. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice wrote, "For me, it blows everything else off the radio: it's clean the way the Dolls never were, sprightly the way the Velvets never were, and just plain listenable the way Black Sabbath never was. And I hear it cost $6,400 to put on plastic."
As it usually goes in the music business, those at the forefront of a movement get tons of praise, but never really benefit commercially. Tommy was the only living member of the original lineup when the album was certified gold on April 14, 2014. Sadly, he passed away three months later.
If you were to lay out a timeline of rock & roll, then Ramones would be written in bold letters as signaling the beginning of a new era in music. This album is twenty-nine of the most important and influential minutes in rock history because it defined almost everything before as "the past."
LISTEN: