Ramones
Brain Drain

I believe in miracles and in a better world for the two of us.

This is how «Brain Drain», the eleventh studio album by the Ramones, begins, released on March 23, 1989.

This is the album to have, just like the debut, for anyone who is not a complete collection maniac, because it marked the definitive rebirth of the band.

The previous «Too Tough To Die», «Animal Boy», and «Halfway To Sanity» were encouraging signs of life after many – too many – gathered at the deathbed clutching copies of «Pleasant Dreams» and «Subterranean Jungle», contrite in appearance but beaming because they already foresaw in 1974 that those four incompetents could not endure; indeed, after ten years, they shouldn't have lasted.

What satisfaction, to see them perpetually excluded from the hot positions of the charts, even when they collaborated with Phil Spector, even when they recorded «Baby, I Love You», even when they timidly burst onto the stage of Top Of The Pops humiliated by a playback that still cries for revenge.

What satisfaction it would have been if they hadn't made it to 1989, for all those who neither heeded nor will heed «It’s Gonna Be Alright» and «Touring», and even if inadvertently they did, they still wouldn't grasp the meaning.

I also believe in miracles and in a better world for the two of us.

Well, the sensational success that attended «Pet Sematary» could not have been called otherwise, a miracle and the hope that the world was better than thought: they were deemed finished at every turn, and they made a mockery of it and in «Pet Sematary» all four let themselves be buried, and a shining luminous headstone descended upon them.

All four, down in the grave, Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Marky.

Many couldn't digest that ephemeral success, yet they opened bottles of the good stuff when, a few days later, Dee Dee left home and family: they toasted, because they couldn't have lasted without Dee Dee, and Joey and Johnny who had gone to war many years earlier and since then didn't even speak to each other or exchange a glance. The Ramones were no longer a happy family, and maybe, if we believe their autobiographical confessions, they never were.

They wouldn't have lasted longer if CJ hadn't knocked on the door. Certainly, they did not return to being a happy family, but they had the strength to go on, to give us all, their children, the hope that miracles happen and the world is better than we think, just as it happens in families.

And then it was the Ramones who raised the paper cups filled with cheap warm beer, wishing everyone Merry Christmas, albeit slightly ahead of time. But these were invariably the Ramones, those who wished Merry Christmas in March and headed to Rockaway Beach in December.

Many lost hope of witnessing their career end and consoled themselves by defining them as survivors, pathetic, confident that soon it would be time for grunge and corporate punk.

They were deluded once more, and how wonderful it was that Eddie Vedder, Tim Armstrong, and Lars Frederiksen were there to greet Joey, Johnny, CJ, and Marky when they took the stage for the last time. And Dee Dee returned too, because they were a family, albeit an unhappy one.

«Brain Drain» is everything but an album of survivors.

The sound is powerful, fuller than ever before, and tracks like «Zero Zero UFO», «Learn To Listen», and «Ignorance Is Bliss» testify to the extraordinary creativity of "those" Ramones,

And Joey's voice, roaring from the amplifiers, but also urging to believe in miracles and in a better world.

I believe in miracles, even if miracles don't always happen.

The impact of «Brain Drain» was so powerful that the Ramones drew vitality for three more beautiful albums from it.

Joey was sometimes forced to give up the microphone before giving up for good, but before that, he wanted to invite everyone not to worry about his fate and to witness that what he lived was always a wonderful world, even if he wasn't blessed by a miracle; then Dee Dee, Johnny, and Tommy all passed away, and today only CJ and Marky remain to remember what the Ramones mean.

R-A-M-O-N-E-S!

I believe in miracles and in a better world for the two of us, or at least for you.