Ramones
Anthology

THE REVIEW

A band of seminal importance for all the music produced in the last three decades in the rock sphere, the Ramones, during their lifetime, had much less success and fame than what has been attributed to them in recent years, also coinciding with the premature deaths of the founding members of the band, Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Ramone.
The celebrations of the Ramones, starting from their induction into the Hall of Fame in 2002, seem rather late today, although largely driven by a sincere spirit of reaffirming the role of the New York quartet in defining punk rock aesthetics (to be understood in the broadest sense of the term, both musical technique and image) and the same "ethics" of a certain part of the movement, characterized by nihilism and complacent absurdity.

The double anthology highlighted here offers listeners the chance to focus on the musical value of the Ramones' work, understanding their importance as well as the limits of their proposal: it includes fifty-eight tracks covering the entire career of the quartet, from their first and greatest hit, Blitzkrieg Bop, to one of the last tracks recorded in the studio, that R.A.M.O.N.E.S. originally composed and recorded by Motorhead as a tribute to the group and the era when punk rock began to germinate.
It is obviously impossible, as well as inadvisable, to proceed here with a meticulous analysis of each track, even considering that all Ramones songs, in the end, are similar: 4/4 time, pounding drums and bass, a very fast guitar riff with some possible key changes, a total absence of solos, vocals suspended between the absurd and the bold, all churned out with amphetamine tones and an absolute urgency to finish the piece within 2 - 3 minutes, saying everything necessary. Lyrics deliberately devoid of meaning or structures, based on meaningless slogans, except for some political remnant – albeit populist – in the later years of their career.
Precisely because of their similarity, Ramones tracks could be listened to all in a row, or randomly, without respecting chronology or the order present on the album, and nothing would change.
One could argue, therefore, that these are overall banal or negligible tracks, lacking intrinsic value if listened to today when the group no longer physically exists and punk, overwhelmed by new trends and transformed by the wave of Californian bands during the '90s, has ceased to exist as an attitude and style: criticisms that are partly founded but which, in my opinion, misconstrue the revolutionary character, and in that sense still current, of the "Ramone brothers'" music.
By reducing their musical influences to the lowest common denominator (Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis, philly sound), digesting them and spitting them in their audience's face in an accelerated, anti-aesthetic, and schizoid version, in having finally separated means and message, the Ramones have unveiled the true nature of rock: nothing more than voice, guitar, bass, and drums, nothing more than simple noise.