Bad Predictions

In 1991 Ice T said:

Mandela did 27 hard ones

Not in a windowed room

But in a barred one

While his wife had tears in her eyes

The man is a hero he needs a Nobel Prize

But that will never happen so I'm gonna keep rappin'

Freein' my brothers' minds from their entrapment

To silence the Ice, they'll probably put a bullet in me

But I'm prepared to die, Mandela's free!

Mandela won the Nobel prize in 1993. They didn't put a bullet in the Ice.

My List

Here's my attempt at a list. I couldn't imagine putting them in order so they're more or less chronological or, within albums, track order (but from memory so maybe not exactly right). The list is kind of arbitrary, especially for the first three albums where I could think of any number of substitutions. This list is geared toward what I feel about it right now, over time of course songs rise and fall for me, with an eye to what is really 'best' not just what I'm not sick of, but also with an eye to favorites not just 'best.' All in all a confusing mess.

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World
Glad to See You Go
Swallow My Pride
Teenage Lobotomy
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Questioningly
She's the One
Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio
Danny Says

I stopped there because that's ten, but that means I stopped with "End of the Century" since I was limiting myself to two songs per album and couldn't justify less than that for any of those albums. But as much as I love a lot of later Ramones material I don't think any of it would bump any of those. "The KKK Took My Baby Away," "Howling At The Moon," and maybe "I Won't Let It Happen" or "Death of Me" would probably be the prime contenders. I've always loved Psychotherapy, but does anyone really think it's one of the top ten?

List From Elsewhere

From the web, the ten best Ramones songs in countdown-type order :

10. “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”

Fun fun, indeed, just like the movie that’s named after it.

9. “I Wanna Be Sedated”

For such a sad song, it sure has made a lot of people happy. Even four year olds love it!

8. “Beat on the Brat”

According to Dee Dee Ramone, Joey wrote this song after watching a mother go after her kid with the titular sporting implement.

7. “The KKK Took My Baby Away”

This one has been covered by many, including Pearl Jam and Marilyn Manson. We dare you to name another song with that distinction.

6. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”

For all his sneering, Joey Ramone was a softy deep down. “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” best encapsulates this romanticism.

5. “Cretin Hop”

Named after a street in Minnesota, this not-quite-two-minute gem is featured in the movieSLC Punk.

4. “Rockaway Beach”

Dee Dee Ramone knew the Queens beach was “not far, not hard to reach,” which is one of the reasons he frequently visited it and wrote a song for it.

3. “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”

When Thurston Moore covers your song on Gossip Girl, you know you’ve done something right.

2. “Judy is a Punk”

One and half minutes of perfection.

1. “Blitzkrieg Bop”
If you don’t think this is #1, you’re simply kidding yourself.

Mondo Bizarro Review

It's hard to write about the Ramones without talking about their context, their significance, what they were responding to, what they were influenced by, etc. This is because, at least in their early period (which I would define as their first three albums), their music was as much music about music as it was anything else. Every song was a manifesto for their minimalist and primitivist aesthetic. What is most remarkable about the early period is that they produced three albums of pretty much equal merit, and it should go without saying that I think this means each one is a classic. It's not as though these albums are stylistically undifferentiated--their sound did evolve a bit from album to album, and the songwriting sort of tiptoed ahead too. And, of course, the closer one focuses in on these albums (The Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia) the more differentiating characteristics one is likely to find among them. Anyway, the most astounding thing about these albums is that the Ramones, minimalists though they were, were world-class songwriters (and this is probably true for both Dee Dee and Joey, whose contributions are probably less recognized but equally important).

With Road to Ruin the Ramones didn't really take a quantum leap, but they clearly inched across a line, it seems to me. Whether this was a step forward or not is debatable, but the band clearly could not have kept putting out albums like the first three indefinitely. If they were painted into a corner, there is little indication of it on Road to Ruin. How highly I rate the album varies from time to time; sometimes I think it's my favorite, other times I decisively prefer the first three. But in any case, it is impossible to consider the album a failure; the Ramones clearly evolved (in a value-neutral sense) without becoming crappy. Certainly "You Don't Come Close"  and "Questioningly"would be unimaginable on any previous Ramones album, and they are two of the strongest, most engaging songs on the album. The rest of it is closer to the same kind of thing only a bit different; some acoustic guitars, a little less frenetic of a mood, and more noticeable tinges of mid-tempo heavy metal (a trend which began on "Rocket to Russia" and remained throughout the rest of their career).

Mondo Bizarro

I've just reacquainted myself with this, the 12th Ramones studio album, and it's a lot better than I remembered. I always enjoyed this album but I think I had the idea that if anything, it covered the point spread, as it were. Now it seems clear that this is the best Ramones album since Subterranean Jungle and it might even be better in some ways. It's clearly better than Animal Boy and Halfway to Sanity (when the latter came out I convinced myself it was way better than it is, it's very weak). This is nestled right in the middle of a run of weakish-to-lame late period albums so it is all the more surprising that it is such a good album.

I am going to write more about this later so watch this space...