So why is Ramones on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Throughout my life, I’d daydream about the iconic moments in human history that I’d check out if I could hop into my own personal Delorean-meets-time machine.
Skipping all of the butterfly effect stuff and paradoxes that the notion of time travel might conjure, I’d soon turn away from world historical events and hanging out with Winston Churchill or a young Ben Franklin and jump into the good stuff, such as:
- The Doors playing the Whisky A Go Go circa 1966
- R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia around 1980
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience in London in the mid-‘60s
As a New York native who was born in and lived in Queens post-college, there’s one band and one venue that I’d daydream about as much as any of the above:
- The Ramones playing CBGBs in New York City in the mid-1970s
The self-titled Ramones debut album is not only an iconic document of old school punk rock that’s as distilled, clean, driving, and gloriously rocking as it comes, but it’s also as scintillating a collection of songs that conjures the feeling of being at a raucous downtown Manhattan venue as you’ll ever find in studio album form.
By the way: for those who might dismiss the Ramones’ music as overly simplistic, I always go back to the Steve Jobs quote, “Simple can be harder than complex.”
Equally impressive is that Ramones rocks so hard while showing surprising range, from the ’60s bubblegum pop meets ‘70s outcast NYC street cred rock of “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” to the straight-up aggro punk bliss of “I Don’t Wanna Go Down to the Basement” (an off the charts great deep cut).
And this is pulled from my notes that I jotted down during the long research process in compiling the best 1,000 albums ever:
Dude, “Let’s Dance”… let’s launch that 1950s early rock-and-roll hyper charged on punk rock(et) fuel into space for the alien civilizations to hear on the real.
In retrospect, it makes me chuckle that I addressed the universal “dude” there.
And I haven’t even yet gotten to “Blitzkrieg Bop,” one of the most famous punk rock songs of all time. It’s nearly half a century old as of this writing, and still sounds as fresh and bracing and pleasing as ever.
“Beat on the Brat” has long been a favorite of mine, which may or may not be in part because it’s leveraged to glorious effect in the classic Adam Sandler comedy, Billy Madison.
There are so many tracks worth calling out on Ramones, but I’ll end with “Judy Is a Punk” (not to be confused with Sheena), which itself is a perfect fusion of Dick Clark-era rock and roll with an aggressive sound that bursts with energy and yet is delightfully melodic at the same time.
Some stats & info about Ramones
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Punk Rock, New York Bands, New Wave, Old School Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #47
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Ramones released? 1976
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #83 out of 1,000
Ramones on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Ramones that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Hey ho, let’s go.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.