Customer Reviews

The Ramones' Ramones (33 1/3)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There are so many wonderful books in the 33 1/3 series. This isn't one of them. Crushingly repetitive, this essay about the 70s punk scene offers little beyond name-dropping, back-patting and self-indulgence. To paraphase a quote from the book: "There's nothing going in, there's nothing coming out." Oh, and did I mention that maybe 20 percent of the book is actually about the songs on the Ramones' debut album. You'll find out just as much about Lester Bangs. May as well put him on the cover. Just rancid.

Barely a third of the book's 106 pages are devoted to an in-depth discussion of the Ramones' debut album, "Ramones." The rest of the book is devoted to the early history of the punk movement in the US (and New York City in particular) and a fairly academic discussion of what the term "punk" meant in the mid-70's versus what it came to mean later.

This book is an interesting read, but I'm giving it a 3-star rating because, unlike many other titles in the 33 1/3 series, it is NOT primarily focused on the album it is devoted to.

Ramones by Nicholas Rombes is an excellent book for many reasons. Perhaps least of which is that I not only learned something about the Ramones debut, Ramones, but about the origins of punk rock itself. My interest in punk began with my first encounter as a third-grader back in 1987 when a friend and I made a hand-held tape recording of my older brother's of Dead Kennedys's Plastic Surgery Disasters record. That formative experience largely helped shaped what punk has meant to me since then. But, reading Ramones by Nicholas Rombes has provided me a critical history about the four kids from Forrest Hills, Queens whose first album became a flashpoint for punk rock and ultimately has deepened my understanding of what punk is.

The historical, economical, and cultural background Rombes provides puts the Ramones first album in perspective. The Ramones were not a group of flag-burning anarchists nor did they conform to some romanticized, neo-Marxist concept of the people's musicians. No, Rombes explains, the Ramones, who grew up in suburban New York City listening to Elvis Presley, watching B-movies, and reading comic books, actually wanted to make the pop music of 1970s radio better. To improve it, the Ramones spent considerable money, time, and creative effort to faithfully record their first record. Their approach to music was not at all chaotic or destructive as punk rock clichés might suggest. Rombes compellingly argues that contemporary understandings of punk generally misunderstand the origins of punk by extending contemporary ideas concerns backward in time to the mid 1970s. This is an insightful perspective that I never quite would have had if I had not read this book by Nicholas Rombes.

Ramones very well might be probably the first and last academic book on punk music that I will read and rightly so because most anything else would be a disappointment. Ramones by Nicholas Rombes is neither unnecessarily intellectual nor naïve about its subject. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in contemporary music because chances are if you've heard it on the radio, then it's indebted to the Ramones.

I love the concept and execution of this book series. In this version the whole NYC scene is portrayed as a movement and kind of an action adventure game for bored suburbanites. The book allows the reader to know exactly what the times and city's ideas were that allowed these brash "children" to become outsider "adults." The book glazes over the bg of the individuals for either history or lack of history of the members. There is no mention of Dee Dee's prostitution etc. just cliff notes of their basic life and upbringing, reinforced as a persona when they actually start to turn the bowels of the bowery on it's head. The writer explains punk and it's meaning more often then the band but the reader needs to know this and all it's levels of complexity to fully understand why these 4 men were so important. If it was just a straight fact bio of the group their importance at a time of ELP and arena rock might not have been so obvious.
A brilliant documentary on what it means to be punk. Not a leather jacket not a tatooed face or a pierced lip but an idea to do what you what when you what the way you want and let the coroner sort em out.

I guess one of the beauties of the 33 1/3 series is that they are all just a bit different in content and format. The edition about *Master of Reality* was miles away from the one about *Double Nickels on the Dime* and both were terrific. Having said that I need to say I like the record much more than the book in this instance (Ramones). Well, who wouldn't like the record better than a book about the record - dancing about architecture - blah blah blah - yada yada yada. It was fun, however, to read a hundred page term paper with lot of academic theory blended with unabashed fandom about an album I've simply been listening to for the past 30+ years.

A complete picture of the period they represented...1975. The author has not gone into the "gossip" fluff about the group, but has stuck to the facts. Really good research. Very good read.

Rombes' book jumps in hard without a beat count and doesn't let up until his fingers are bleeding. This isn't a history book about the Ramones' first album (it's not supposed to be), nor is it a flaky fan tribute . It's an idiosyncratic riff on how the band got into the head of the writer. And the writer, thankfully, is a gifted poet and historian. If this book is academic at times, it's about as punk as academic can get without being pretentious. Smart readers will understand that Rombes hasn't given us an in-depth analysis of the first album -- he's given us a fresh performance of it.