Based in the Forest Hills section of Queens, NY, The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical ideals of the genre. By cutting rock & roll down to its bare essentials — four chords; a simple, catchy melody; and irresistibly inane lyrics — and speeding up the tempo considerably, the Ramones created something that was rooted in early '60s, pre-Beatles rock & roll and pop but sounded revolutionary.
"Our early songs came out of our real feelings of alienation, isolation, frustration -- the feelings everybody feels between seventeen and seventy-five," said singer Joey Ramone. Clocking in at just under twenty-nine minutes, Ramones is an intense blast of guitar power, rhythmic simplicity and ferocious brevity, a complete rejection of the spangled artifice and hollow, artsy pretensions of 1970s rock. The songs were fast and anti-social, just like the band: "Beat on the Brat," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." Guitarist Johnny Ramone refused to play solos -- his jackhammer chords became the lingua franca of punk -- and the whole record cost just over $600 to make. But Joey's leather-tender plea "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" showed that even punks need love.
Total album sales: Under 500,000
Peak chart position: 111
Blitzkreig Bop:
I Wanna Be Sedated:
