Customer Reviews

Subterranean Jungle

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Normally I might be a little cynical about these re-issue CDs. I bought every Ramones record on vinyl when I was in high school. Then I later bought them on CD, and it wasn't all that long ago. Now they expect me to buy them AGAIN? Is this just a record lable/conglomerate trying to squeeze more money out of a band that never really achieved "financial success" for them? I don't know. What I do know is that these new re-releases are worth every damn penny I paid for them. Each booklet is packed to the gills with great photos and informative retrospectives on what was going on with the band around the time the album was recorded. Best of all, they include outtakes, demo versions, B sides etc. Casual fans should think twice before buying, but if you consider yourself a "Ramones fan" then you really need these re-issues.

Speicifically about Subterranean Jungle:

I think this is one of the Ramones' most underrated records. Their first three albums (Ramones, Leave Home, and Rocket to Russia) are clearly the most classic examples of the Ramones' sound. The fourth album, 1978's Road to Ruin, was the first time the Ramones went completely out of character, with the songs Needles & Pins and Questioningly. Not bad songs necessarily, but both were obvious attempts to soften their approach in order to get some radio airplay. The next album, 1980's End of the Century, was a full blown attempt at selling out. They hired Phil Spector who watered down the Ramones sound with an army of session musicians and bombastic over-production. Yet, there are still some excellent songs on the album. They then followed up with Pleasant Dreams in 1981, produced by Graham Gould of 10cc. Again, the songs are great, but they're totally castrated due to the very anemic production. Then in late 1982, they recorded Subterranean Jungle.

Most fans seem to lump this album in with End of the Century and Pleasant Dreams, weak albums with producers who had no business producing the Ramones. Off the top of my head, I don't even remember who produced Subterranean Jungle. It does have an odd sound that's hard to describe. The snare drum sounds synthetic. The guitar has a weird timbre to it that I've never heard before or since. But the main issue is that the production isn't weak per se. The raw agression had returned after being totally absent on two entire albums. The Ramones actually sounded PUNK again. Most fans regard their next album, Too Tough To Die, as their "comeback" album. Granted, TTTD is indeed a stronger effort than Subterranean Jungle, but that doesn't mean Subterranean Jungle wasn't a strong effort in and of itself. To me, this was their comeback, their return to what they do best: grind out loud powerchords in the form of very catchy riffs.

The Ramones' 7th studio album doesn't match their first album but nothing ever could. 1st albums by great bands are just that way. If you can only afford one Ramones album, buy the first, then find a way to buy more. (IMHO the only bad Ramones album is Acid Eaters.) Yes, the production on this one deviates from their trademark low-fi sound but it's good in its own way (and it beats the hell out of End of the Century, a real production cop out), SJ has some classic tracks: `Outsider', `Psychotherapy' as well as a dynamite cover of `Time Has Come Today' complete with Chambers Brothers-like cowbells. What I particularly like about SJ are the strong power pop songs like `I Need Your Love', `What'd Ya Do', `Somebody Like Me', `My-My Kind of Girl' and others. All very catchy, well sung, well played. All in all, this is another great effort. Buy the one with the bonus tracks.

The early '80s were a tough period for the Ramones. After seeing punk dissovle into New Wave, they tried to keep up with the trend without totally compromising their original punk sound. But after witnessing their lush experiment with 1980's "End of the Century" go wrong, the Ramones had a hard time finding their place. The following year's "Pleasant Dreams," and "Subterranean Jungle" didn't capture the attention the Ramones hoped that they would garner. This is a shame.

"Subterranean Jungle" -- in a word -- rocks. I would place it in the same CD juke-box rack with popular hard rock acts such as Green Day, Blink 182, Rancid, and Sum41, and it would not sound out-of-place. The guitar sound on "Jungle" is supreme -- tastefully layered and aggressive, and Dee Dee's bass nearly stands out as much as it did on "Ramones," providing a head-bopping, buzzy beat. The production does go over-the-top with the drums; the snare is so taut, you almost begin to believe that Marky is playing with brushes. Producers Glen Kolotkin and Ritchie Cordell tried to capture their late '60s bubblegum heyday, with the drum signatures, chimes, and Joey's croon. It works, but doesn't quite fit into the genre for which the Ramones are known.

That having been said, this is still a great album from song to song. "Time Bomb" hits a low point with questionable lyrical content (but then, "Jungle" is a brooding album), and "I Need Your Love" is a sleeper. The best of the album can be heard between the two '60s covers, "Little Bit O'Soul" and "Time Has Come Today." Even after that sequence, there are still gems like "My-My Kind of a Girl" and "Everytime I Eat Vegetables, It Makes Me Think of You," which shows that the Ramones could still joke light-heartedly about thorazine and shock treatment. Even the cover of the foursome on a heavily-graffitied subway train deftly defines the combination of humor and darkness that makes "Jungle" what it is.

This is a very good album, containing some of the most undervalued, straight-up rock the Ramones have ever recorded. The fans got it wrong.

This has always been one of those Ramones albums that nobody pays much attention to, but I've always thought it's a gold mine. Some of their best songs are here: "In My Room," "Outsider," and the unreleased "Unhappy Girl" are among my all-time favorite Ramones songs. It seems like people sneer at anything of theirs that came after their late-'70s classics. Oh well. It's their loss. Skip the cover of "Time Has Come Today" and you've got an entire album of short, catchy but muscular power-pop tunes with the trademark Ramones chainsaw guitar and Joey's New Yawk vocals. This is great stuff, people.

Subterranean Jungle is a step towards the early punk rock that the Ramones mastered. On this album the Ramones sounded more main stream. With covers of "Little Bit O soul" which is one of their best covers, and "I Need Your Love" and "Time Has Come Today" are especially too many covers for one album. The original material like "Psycho Therapy" and "Somebody Like Me" are excellent Ramones songs. Subterranean Jungle is a good attempt for the Ramones, but borders on self parody.

Everybody has their own opinion about which Ramones album was the last classic, and for me it's this one. Their albums tended to veer away from bubblepunk after this and were more hardcore and tuneless, and very dark. Subterranean Jungle's highlights include covers of the pop gems A Little Bit O'Soul and Time Has Come Today, as well as fantastic originals like Joey's (or Joe, as he's credited here) My-my Kind Of A Girl and Dee Dee's Outsider. So start with their first, buy everything up through this, and search the second-hand bins for everything after so you can make a compilation tape of the smattering of songs (like Poison Heart and She Belongs to Me) that came after. Gabba Gabba Hey!

The great thing about re-issues with previously unreleased bonus tracks is that you get a chance to play Monday morning producer -- remaking the album with cuts left on the studio floor. And fact is, SUBTERRANEAN JUNGLE could've been an even stronger album when it was initially released had the Ramones made some better picks from the songs at their disposal. Like UNHAPPY GIRL -- a buoyant and blistering track that should've bumped the wishy-washy SOMEBODY LIKE ME off the original version of JUNGLE. Meanwhile, the boys' cover of INDIAN GIVER is a smokin' slab of bubblepunk -- far superior to the lame I NEED YOUR LOVE on the original. Finally, the newly released BUMMIN' ALONG is a classic hot-wired Dee Dee moment and would've made a much stronger original album track than HIGHEST TRAILS ABOVE. There, these changes would've made JUNGLE a bona fide classic instead of a near miss. But no need to lament, buy the re-issue and enjoy all the terrif tunes!

This is the first of the re-masters that I gave any consideration to not purchasing. Even if this, the seventh albulm, is one of the weakest Ramones efforts, and not all would agree with that assessment, it's still easily within the top twenty per cent of rock released, and deserves its five stars.

The albulm begins with a jangle-punk cover of "Little Bit O' Soul", suggesting that Joey and Johnny have decided to hold on to the best of the pop sound of the last two albulms and put some Ramones energy back in. But the albulm doesn't fulfill that promise. The pop-influenced material on this albulm ("Somebody Like Me", "My-My Kind of Girl") sounds tepid, and Johnny's guitar still sounds tame when compared to their classic early material. This timidity undermines the more punk tracks ("Highest Trails Above", "In The Park") flattening the albulm into a pop-punk soupiness wherein float only a couple of really outstanding tracks ("Psycho Therapy", "Outsider"). "Time Has Come Today" could have been found on a 'Stones albulm. Before it sounds like I am panning what I labelled a five-star albulm, I should mention that this albulm is also an intriguing halfway-mark in the band's change in direction away from pop back to their punk roots and the sporting with harcore and metal that was to come. It's the Ramones. It's handled with a fun professionalism that rewards the fan by not straying from what we love about the band. Even if this albulm is, in some ways, a compromise, it only sounds like one when compared to their earlier brash punk and unforgettable pop lunacy.

The re-mastering on this albulm shows the same impressive expertise that its predecessors have. Gil Kaufman flounders a little in his writing for the booklet, but it remains interesting enough. If I had decided to skip this purchase, I would have foolishly missed Rhino's bonus-track gifts to Ramones fans on this albulm. Why "Indian Giver" was left of the albulm is a mystery; it would've been one of its stronger tracks, the pop-punk blend works so well here. The five (surprisingly-polished) demo tracks are interesting digressions from the sound of the albulm. "Unhappy Girl", especially, shows hints of what could have been a classic studio track.

This isn't the place for the punk nor the pop fan to begin with the Ramones ('The Ramones' and 'End of the Century', respectively), but completists will be very pleased with this quality of this re-release.

"Sub Jungle" was one of the Ramones' great mid-period attempts to save rock'n'roll via a unique brand of bazooka-fired bubblegum punk-pop. And they pumped out out some classics on this platter, including "Time Bomb," "Psycho Therapy" and the brilliant "Everytime I Eat Vegetables It Makes Me Think Of You." But you know all that. The big news here is that the bonus tracks are a blast. "New Girl" ranks as one of Joey's best attempts to update the Ronettes. Johnny's raucous riffs make former cast-offs "Bummin' Along" and "Unhappy Girl" more worthy than some of the tracks that made the album's first cut. And finally, the sparkling acoustic version of "My-My Kind of a Girl" makes you wonder all over again why the pop world never rewarded these guys with the smash hit they richly deserved. Buy it.

By 1983, it was apparent (even to the Ramones) that the punk rock acts they had inspired had overshadowed them, and now that punk was moving on in favor of new wave and the dreaded eighties hair metal, the punk pioneers were stuck. Perhaps with this in mind, maybe as an attempt to get out of this rut, the Ramones released the superb "Subterranean Jungle."
Though it didn't take them out of a commerical slump, "Subterranean Jungle" remains one of the Ramones' most accomplished sets. The reason the album seemed to have the strength to stop the lack of critical and commercial recognition is its overall brooding and all-out punk attitude. Before "Subterranean Jungle," the Ramones' original punk rock stylings were all catchy, high-energy, blistering ditties, blending 50's bop and deadpan sonic punk, with a cartoonish sense of humor. But with this 1983 punk masterpiece, the Ramones seem to say "Step aside..." to the acts they had inspired (or rather, the acts that ripped them off), brandishing their classic punk attack, an underlying sense of anger and, replacing their cartoonish humor, healthy cynicism. Two of the Ramones most classic recordings of the 80's, 'Outsider' and 'Psycho Therapy' are full of their energy and wit, while 'Time Bomb' and 'In the Park' are exceptionally stylish punk, and 'What'd Ya Do?' is a genuine sparkler. But of course, the Ramones haven't traded in their 50's/60's pop roots, displayed here with 'Little Bit O' Soul' and 'Time Has Come Today.'
"Subterranean Jungle" contains exemplary Ramones performances, while slightly maneuvering their appeal into a redefined sense of musical purpose, but surely not losing their classic claim to punk rock royalty. The aspect captured on "Subterranean Jungle" would continue onto further releases such as "Animal Boy" and "Halfway to Sanity," making this album an influential piece in the Ramones' legacy.