Since its inception as the country’s most popular music style in 1955, rock and roll evolved and changed so much during the subsequent twenty years that it became unrecognizable, bearing no resemblance at all to the roots that spawned it.

At its inception, rock and roll was mostly simple, strong, riff-based music made for teenagers. As time passed, styles branched out and the music ‘matured’, but much of the original vitality of the music had gone missing. By the mid-seventies, production values seemed as important as the music, with the scene dominated by an oligarchy of egocentric rock stars and ‘star-makers’, each with an agenda that bore no resemblance to the roots of the genre.

Could Fats Domino accept Genesis as his musical offspring? Would Chuck Berry admit any connection between himself and Led Zeppelin? What’s even worse is that the audience started to split into factions. In short, rock and roll had grown bloated and unnecessarily complex.

In 1976, the Ramones hit the ‘reset’ button. It was time to throw away the pretense that rock and roll was best left to technicians and wizardly visionaries. The Ramones debut album hit the market and everybody who heard it had a visceral reaction. The album disseminated slowly, and quite honestly, the majority of listeners were horrified. They despised its Cro-Magnon simplicity, while the highly compressed recordings made it sound cheap and under-produced. Most listeners kept spinning their Doobie Brothers albums, but a small percentage of the listening audience heard the Ramones as a breath of fresh air.

Slowly but surely, the stagnant rock and roll scene had been revitalized by a bunch of freaky outsiders from the boroughs of NYC. The old guard mocked them, remaining blissfully cocky and self-assured while unwittingly fading into irrelevance. Meanwhile, the Ramones defined a ‘new breed’. Considering the animus that initially greeted them, it must have been one hell of a vindication when Spin magazine voted them the second best band of all time (after you-know-who).

The stylistic difference presented by the Ramones could hardly have been more drastic, in every sense. It is quite ironic that they were signed by Sire Records, which up until that moment had been ground zero for progressive British rock. In the post-hippie environment, the Ramones were anti-hippies, looking more like roughshod greasers in black leather. Musically, the album was a wall of noise with short, concise tunes played at a tempo locked above 150 bpm. Bucking the trend of longer and longer ‘concept’ records, the album is only 29 minutes long, but contains fourteen songs. Lyrics and song titles were ridiculous. “Beat on the brat with a baseball bat” and “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” were just two examples of their self-parodic image, but this was no joke. “Blitzkrieg Bop” made absolutely no sense, but the song’s intensity made logic irrelevant. This was about energy, pure and simple.

he Ramones were plainly outsiders who somehow managed to kick down the record industry wall intended to keep out anything so primitive. Despite poor sales, critics loved “The Ramones” almost immediately, and in its wake, punk came to life as a force to be reckoned with. For the time being, rock and roll was saved.

Featured Tracks:

Blitzkrieg Bop

Beat on the Brat

Judy Is a Punk

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

Chain Saw

Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement

Loudmouth

Havana Affair

Listen to My Heart

53rd & 3rd

Let's Dance

I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You

Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

April 1976 - Billboard Charted #111