Ramones, The Ramones, review

I’ve received many thoughtful and useful emails to the filesharing article below.

As I think about the filesharing debate, I’ve started to remember the staggering number of albums I’ve purchased more than once. Usually it was to change format from vinyl to audio tape to CD to MP3. Some though, were acts of devotion. I remember buying two copies of Talking with the Taxman About Poetry on the day it came out, just in case one of the tapes didn’t work when I got home.

Anyway, I’m going to start listing them on the blog, starting with the seventies and going forward from there:

Ramones

1. Like many people, I bought Ramones in the eighties, though a quick Google search tells me the album was actually produced in 1976. And even though Johnny “I think punk should be right wing” Ramone was a Repbulican gun fetishist, this band spoke to working class youth as much as any Paul Weller lyric ever did. They created a grunge-beach-boy sound that was uniquely harmonious. Legendary front man Joey Ramone was, in my view, the key to their reach. Six foot six Joey was Rock ‘n’ Roll’s first uber geek.

They made albums meaty in those days – fourteen tracks at two minutes a go. Listening to this album is an audio wallride of beach-boy punk. The lyrics attack you.”Now I wanna sniff some glue”,”"Beat on the Brat”,”Chain Saw” have bounced generations of teenagers around their bedroom floors.

More than anything, this album and the single Blitzkrieg bop takes me back to school discos at Kidderminster Carolians Rugby Club. “What they want, I don’t know, They’re all reved up and ready to go.” I found that lyric going through my head many times when I was a minister.