The Ramones have pretty much been around forever. Or at least they seem to have been around forever. Well – 22 years. Still, in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll history, that is a bloody long time! Not many bands can claim to have been around for such a length of time. Since forming in 1974, they have released 18 studio albums, several live albums and there are countless collections and compilations, many of which were released ‘posthumously’ after the band split up in 1996 or after members had sadly passed away. It is safe to say that they have influenced one hell of a lot of bands too; you can hear the influence of the Ramones in many bands in the punk scene, as well as increasingly more in today’s indie scene. The Ramones are a band that everyone should hear, and not necessarily just for enjoyment. Given that they were a part of a monumental period of rock history, and not only survived it but also outlived it by over 15 years and have shaped many of today’s bands, they are worth listening to as a history lesson. But the question is: where do you start listening? Many fans will tell you that you can’t go wrong with their self-titled debut, the most successful album of theirs. However, this will only provide a brief insight into their long history. To go one better, would be to listen to this collection - ‘The Anthology’. With tracks spanning their entire career and with all albums fairly equally represented, this album is a great start for anyone new to one of the most important bands ever.
Fans of the band may say that the best place to start with the Ramones is their self-titled debut, and this is because it is considered by many, to be their best album. Also, being the first album it sounded fresher at the time, and still does, than their other albums. It is also perhaps the only album that has only good tracks taken from it. The others have two or three, maybe four good tracks out of the 6 or 7 from that album. The first song on this compilation is one that everyone everywhere will have heard at some point, even if they don’t realise it. The “Hey Ho, Let’s Go” chant of
‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ along with the simple three chord (I, V, VII) structure is emblematic of the Ramones in general – very simple (both musically, and usually lyrically) and fun. The laid back, gentle
‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ is an early departure from the (supposedly) fast, aggressive (well it was for its time) punk, and a good one at that. There are few gentle tracks on the whole compilation, and usually they suffer from having too few musical and lyrical ideas and become boring, even though most tracks are only two-and-a-half minutes long. However,
‘Poison Heart’ is neither lacking good musical or lyrical ideas. Despite the simple nature of the song, it can hold your attention throughout its relatively long duration and even has guitar solo…well, kind of - at least, it fits the song well and helps it progress. Also released late in their career, was the lyrically serious (a rarity!), political
‘Bonzo Goes To Bitburg’. The track sees Joey spitting out his lyrics furiously, while the rest of the band back him up in the chorus with “na-na-na’s”. The whole song is catchy, as is much of the Ramones’ back catalogue. The infectiousness of their songs stems from the simplicity of the music and simple rhyming scheme (
“Beat on the brat. With a baseball bat” from
‘Beat on the Brat’) used in the lyrics which while being far from poetic, are sufficient; matching the simple nature of the music.
Some people bait bands, particularly modern-day bands, for playing overly basic music. However, by and large the Ramones have got away with it. This is because they happen to do it a lot better than most. You would think that on such a long album, with songs that are so simple, the tracks would start to blend into one another – for the most part, you’d be wrong. Sure there are some very bland, uninspired songs such as
‘I Don’t Care’ and
‘Too Tough To Die’, but where these songs fail, others succeed. Songs of below average quality such as the aforementioned couple, fail due to a lack of ideas or motifs used throughout the song. This often happens when there is only one verse that is repeated or nothing that stands out from the song. What
does does stand out though in a lot of tracks is the infectiousness of the lyrics. Not only is
‘Teenage Lobotomy’ extremely catchy, but also breaks tradition from being a little less simple than the other songs by including the odd bar of ¾ time.
‘Tomorrow She Goes Away’ has one of the catchiest choruses on the entire collection, and arguably out of the whole Ramones’ back catalogue, yet it remains one of their less known songs. One of the reasons that it’s chorus is so catchy is because it’s basically a sped-up, punk version of John Lennon’s Imagine. Usually, simple music has either nonsensical or light-hearted lyrics see [i]‘Rock ‘N’ Roll High School’[/I[ and
‘Rockaway Beach’. However, there are also songs that touch on more serious topics such as
‘53rd & 3rd’ (later covered by Metallica) which references the street corner where bassist Dee Dee Ramone worked as a male prostitute because of his poverty. While
‘Pet Sematary’ focuses on death, although it is more of a fairly sombre, Halloween themed song than anything more morbid than that.
There is fairly little that can be done revolving around three chords, so this album can get repetitive very easily. There are 58 songs here, totalling two-and-a-half-hours, so it should go without saying that this isn’t something that you should listen to in one sitting. However, listening to it in short stints or skipping in between selected tracks is highly recommendable as by and large, this is a very good compilation. There are bound to be some weak tracks when there is such a huge number of them to begin with so it comes as no surprise that there are a fair few songs of poor quality here. Alternately, when you have such a large number of tracks you can be pretty certain that there will be at least a few tracks that are good – and there are. In fact, there are a lot of tracks here that are good, and in some cases – great. The Ramones are undeniably a very important band having influenced many and being one of the forerunners of a huge musical period, and this is a good enough reason to hear them. Another reason, in fact a better reason, to listen to them is because they are a good band – a fun band. There are many Ramones’ collections out there, and this is the best one. All of their albums are represented well here, with each one having a similar number of tracks. It is a collection of the 58 most essential Ramones tracks, and arguably (there is a pretty good case for this) the best. If you’re going to get just one Ramones compilation, it should be this one.
