It was thirty years ago today ...

[Cort Haus]

[duke o' york]

... Joe Strummer told the band to play.

[Cort Haus]

Recorded in Highbury N5 as well. :cloud9:

[duke o' york]

Despite the stupid name (), it remains one of the century's finest albums.

[Drake Tungsten]

Meh. The Ramones had already peaked and started to become uncool in America by the time this came out. Too little, too late...

[Cort Haus]

The Ramones are the Ramones. If they came too quickly that was hardly the fault of The Clash.

[Drake Tungsten]

Too quickly? The Ramones had been around for five years by the time London Calling came out. They had already created punk and moved on by the time their British followers finally got around to making good albums.

[Cort Haus]

Oh, I'm not disputing the importance and influence of The Ramones, just the durability of their work as an end-product. It's a bit like Newcomen / Watt vs Trevithick / Stephenson.

I'd still happily jump around to "Suzy Is a Headbanger" on a night out, were I to be anywhere where they played it, but I wouldn't sit and listen to it at home. Well, actually, I might - but not as much as other stuff from around the same time. It's a bit like The Damned's first album (released the same year as Ramones)- useful in development terms but not as good as the slightly later stuff.

[MikeH]

Plus whilst The Ramones were influential they did basically just write the same song 500 times.

[Drake Tungsten]

In their defense, The Ramones' lack of stylistic breadth did prevent them from ever releasing an album as ****ty as Sandinista!.

[Theben]

Credit Iggy & the Stooges for creating punk.

[SlowwHand]

The Ramones hardly created Punk. The New York Dolls.

[-Jrabbit]

I was fortunate enough to see the NY Dolls live -- very out of control show, both the band and the audience. I also have shrink-wrapped copies of both their albums. So clearly I thought of them as important at the time.

The Dolls were glam-trash and very calculated (at least David Johansen was). They were different, they were something, but they were not the first true punk band. I tend to agree with the Iggy/Stooges assertion.

[Guynemer]

Great ****ing album.

[Cort Haus]

In their defense, The Ramones' lack of stylistic breadth did prevent them from ever releasing an album as ****ty as Sandinista!.

The best thing that was said at the time about Sandanista was that, selling at the same for a triple album as for a single album, it was 'value for money'.

They shouldn't have bothered with the the triple, but there were probably just enough decent tracks out of the 36 to pick 12 that were ok.