Ramones

1977: the explosion of the "punk" movement in London and the release of some landmark early "new wave" records make it a watershed year, a year in which rock sets off on a new and irreversible course. The four New Yorkers who called themselves "Ramones" rank fully among the leading protagonists of this period of great ferment: having debuted at the legendary CBGB's as far back as 1974, Joey Ramone and co. had, two years later, with the release of "Ramones", given a healthy jolt to the music scene of the time, proving they had a crystal-clear vision of the new directions rock would take in the years to come.

After a solid, transitional second album, "Rocket to Russia" represented the settling and masterful consolidation of their distinctive sound: what on the debut album could still seem almost like a joke, or a kind of bizarre experiment, had now, in the "official" birth year of the "punk" movement, become to all effects the recognized gospel of a genuine musical revolution, by now fully mature in all its irreverent "immaturity".

"Rocket to Russia", rounding off a kind of trilogy, can be considered the most "punk" album by the Ramones. It's also the record that, alongside "Ramones" of course, stylistically shaped an entire generation of guitarists, bassists and frontmen. It's the one that no self-respecting punk/new wave collection can do without. At this point, though, a few preliminary considerations are needed to better contextualize such a landmark record as "Rocket to Russia" and, with it, the role the Ramones played at that time, as well as in the three years leading up to it.

While the Ramones are rightly associated with the "punk" generation, the four of them should also be seen as a phenomenon that didn't fully coincide with that movement, but rather ran parallel to it and, in many ways, stood apart from it: firstly, for the simple reason that the Ramones not only started performing a full three years before "punk" broke through, but also, unlike almost all of the '77 bands, went on to enjoy a long career after that movement had run its course, doing so without changing their winning formula all that much. Secondly, the four New Yorkers also drew on musical moments and themes that punk overlooked, when it didn't outright reject them: love songs, for instance, including those tear-jerking teenage anthems that won over American teens between the late '50s and early '60s. Filing the Ramones under "punk" in an uncritical, taken-for-granted way, or worse, treating them merely as "precursors" to it, not only limits their historical importance but, above all, does them a disservice musically, making what are actually the band's own peculiar, distinctive traits look like shortcomings compared to "mature punk" (that of the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, etc.). Having established the Ramones' independence from punk, we shouldn't, on the other hand, underestimate just how much punk-rock owes them: without the Ramones, punk-rock — with profound consequences for rock as a whole — would certainly not be what we know today. It wouldn't have taken on its most gleeful, mocking side; it wouldn't have aspired to a truly revolutionary sound, but would have remained tied instead to the loser, "decadent" sonics of bands like the New York Dolls (a band that was necessary, but certainly not sufficient, for the birth of "punk" proper).

Asserting, as we've just done, the peculiarity and independence of the Ramones' musical approach is a way of giving proper credit to a band whose greatest merit, first and foremost, was bringing back to life, in the mid-'70s, the original, explosive energy of rock'n'roll: not as some nostalgic revival, but in a form so groundbreaking that it makes the four of them comparable to a new generation's Chuck Berry for the punk era. The "Maybellene" of the '70s is called "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker": an energetic, fun, sparkling, acrobatic track that truly crowns the Ramones as the most genuine rock'n'rollers of their day. "Sheena" remains the deservedly most celebrated track on "Rocket To Russia" and is also one of the most representative and acclaimed songs of the band's entire long career.

But the album is far from short of other excellent tracks: starting with the powerful opening track, the driving, gloriously demented "Cretin Hop", followed by "Rockaway Beach", which draws clearly on surf-rock roots: right from the start, it breathes that atmosphere of summer fun and carefree abandon that we all carry vividly in our imagination — girls, surf, fun, California sun. It would be wrong, though, to read songs of this kind, which recur in various forms throughout the band's catalogue, as merely "immediate": much like the Beach Boys before them, the Ramones prove capable of conjuring up a youthful imagery whose artifice slips right past you precisely because it's built in a way that's as simple as it is effective (it takes real "art" to hide the "art", after all).

One novelty on this record, compared to the two previous albums, is the presence of "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow": a far more subdued track than the others, with more reflective lyrics that also introduce a melancholic streak — often tied to the theme of remembering a lost love — that would keep resurfacing in the Ramones' music from then on. Marked also by a different, more acoustic guitar tone, "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" is the band's first ballad, almost disarming in its bare-bones simplicity. Joey Ramone, for his part, proves particularly gifted at singing a song like this, which also marks the band's first successful step toward the more "pop" vein in which they would achieve some wonderful results in the years to come (just listen to ballads like "Questioningly", "7-11" or "Bye Bye Baby").

"Locket Love" is a pleasant, cheerful love song that instantly restores the good mood after the passing clouds of the previous track. The following "I Don't Care", one of the album's most overtly "punk" moments both musically and lyrically, soon gives way to the youthful exuberance of the already-mentioned "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker": a red-hot guitar and an irresistible vocal, backed by chanted choruses and handclapping, make it one of those songs so infectious it genuinely makes you want to jump along to it. The following "We're a Happy Family" and, especially, "Teenage Lobotomy" are two more milestones for the band, even if they're arguably songs that work even better live ("It's Alive" is proof enough of that!).

"Do You Wanna Dance?" is an excellent cover of a '50s song written by Bobby Freeman; a notable precedent had come three years earlier with a version sung by John Lennon on "Rock 'n' Roll", which, however, didn't stray too far from the original. The Ramones, by contrast, make the song thoroughly their own, to the point where it's no longer distinguishable from the rest of the record; the original is first taken apart and then reassembled using the same handful of effective ingredients that give shape to all the other tracks: Johnny Ramone's powerful, streamlined guitar "wall of sound"; Dee Dee's pounding bass; Tommy's rapid-fire drumming; and Joey's truly inimitable voice, the eternal teenager. And it's all delivered, as usual in the band's early years, with an exquisitely low-fi feel and clocking in at an average of little more than two minutes per track: no solos, no frills, no padding. Pure, unfiltered energy.

The other textbook cover on the album is the even more explosive "Surfin' Bird", taken from an old hit by the Trashmen: in this case, it's above all the choice of song that matters, because, unlike the previous example, the original here already sounds tailor-made for a Ramones makeover. With "Surfin' Bird" we're looking not just at an explicit tribute to surf-rock, but also at a textbook example of how to update and reinterpret it in a modern key: surf, a genre that also flourished in a garage dimension in the early '60s, now meets the garage sound of a later generation, that of the Ramones. It's a lesson that would go on to win some illustrious converts, especially back home in the States.

Before getting to hear the Ramones tackle the Trashmen, though, there's also room for the jaunty nursery-rhyme feel of "I Wanna Be Well", the flashes of "I Can't Give You Anything" and, above all, the lilting freshness of "Ramona": the inevitable backing chants, along with a softer-toned guitar, drive home another enjoyable track that also stands as a perfect, if ultimately inimitable, blueprint for countless pop-punk melodies of the '90s.

"Why It Is Always This Way?", to close things out, sends off a genuine rock landmark in style: an album that had a revolutionary impact in its day and one that, even now, not only retains its charge and its fun, but still proves capable of teaching us something, of sparking debate. If musical essentialism was the defining trait of the "Ramones" style, especially in the band's first creative phase, in this writer's view it can be recognized and appreciated on two different levels, both valid, and not to be confused with one another: on one level, the essentialism of these songs is already complete in itself, since their perfection lies precisely in their simplicity, the secret of a listening pleasure rooted not in complexity but in the simplicity of the means of artistic expression. At the same time, though, the Ramones also deserve considerable historical credit: it was precisely through their brilliant essentialism that each of these tracks became a precious prototype, drawn on again and again to open up so many new paths in rock. Ramones songs thus became essential lessons — soon absorbed unconsciously — for almost everyone who came after them.

Even today, an album like "Rocket to Russia" still offers a lesson for all rock lovers, and especially for anyone convinced that rock'n'roll truly has no age: the Ramones managed, perhaps like no one else, to reincarnate its original revolutionary spirit in an entirely new, modern, popular form and pass it down to new generations, building an ideal bridge between past and future. A bridge made of three chords and little else: simply, genius. Long live rock'n'roll.

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02/11/2006