Polski opis

Gatunek :	Punk Rock
Rok Wydania :	1988
Jakość :	FLAC
Okładki :	Tak
Ripper :	SurowyTato

Opis:
Album kompilacyjny zawierający między innymi wcześniej niepublikowany utwór "Indian Giver" czy utwór stereo z filmu "Rock 'n' Roll High School". Jedyny album zespołu, który zdobył status złotej płyty w USA.

 English description

Genre :	Punk Rock
Year :	1988
Quality :	FLAC
Covers :	Yes
Ripper :	SurowyTato

Description:
August, 1974. Washington, D.C. An entire country watches as Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, steps aboard a waiting helicopter and vacates the White House. News of the Nixon resignation fills newspaper pages and television and radio broadcasts the world over. From this moment forward, politics will never again be the same. August, 1974, New York City. Scattered Bowery residents pay little notice as four young men from Forest Hills, Queens, enter a small club called CBGB in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The owner, Hilly Kristal, isn't sure if this strange-looking group-identically dressed in leather jackets, T-shirts, ripped jeans, and sneakers, and calling themselves the Ramones-are the ones who are supposed to be auditioning for a gig or just a bunch of hoodlums who've come to fence stolen musical equipment. They take to the stage and play a set, but even after they're through, Kristal still isn't sure if they're a real band or just a bunch of hoodlums. All of their songs are very loud, very short, and very fast. In fact, the only thing separating them are the bass player's shouts of "1-2-3-4" during the milliseconds in which they stop. He decides to book them anyway; business is bad. Their first public performance draws no attention from newspapers, radio, or television and, in point of fact, is witnessed by a grand total of five warm bodies-six if you count the bartender's dog. No matter. From this moment forward, rock & roll will never again be the same. As the great philosopher Marx (that's either Karl or Groucho) once said, "Revolutions begin with ideas," and the revolution known as punk, ignited by the band known as the Ramones, began when four members of the New York division of the worldwide force known as disenfranchised youth realized that they shared some very basic ideas concerning music and culture As Joey Ramone once explained it, "We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard in 1974, there was nothing to listen to anymore Everything was tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk Everything was long jams, long guitar solos we missed music like it used to be before it got 'progressive' we missed hearing songs that were short, and exciting and... good! We wanted to bring the energy back to rock & roll" And though, in their formative stages, they might not have displayed an abundance of what some might call "chops," the Ramones quickly discovered that, as a unit, they possessed a warehouseful of other qualities which, perhaps even more than music, have helped define rock'n'roll throughout its history Qualities like energy And attitude And passion. At their first rehearsals, the band tried to play songs by the artists they liked most-Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, the Stooges, the MC5, Alice Cooper, Slade-but recalled Johnny, "we just couldn't figure them out, so we decided try and write our own, and we had to make them basic enough so we could play them" That they did and, in the process, rock & roll was reinvented Having found the old textbooks unusable, the Ramones simply created their own They wrote about alienation ("Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue") and isolation ("I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You"), about the power ("Blitzkrieg Bop") and the fury ("Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World") of untamed youth, and about life on the mean streets ("53rd & 3rd") and in the last house on the left ("I Don't Wanna Co Down to the Basement") Their songs were funny, often hysterically so, who could keep a straight face envisioning all 6'3" of Joey Ramone stepping up to the plate to "Beat on the Brat" with a baseball bat? Yet their humor was adroitly counterbalanced by a ferociously serious musical attack, made up of Johnnys buzzsawing, no-time-for-solos guitar, Dee Dee's pinpoint (and hell-bent) bass, and Tommy's "all meat, no filler" four-on the-floor drumming. The Ramones weren't the only alternative band on the New York scene during those fateful days of '74 and '75 There were those who'd come before, like the glittery New York Dolls from St Mark's Place, the boys-will-be-boys Dictators from the Bronx, and the priestess from New Jersey, Patti Smith And there were those who emerged alongside them the Neon Boys, Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, who split up to form (respectively) Television and the Voidoids, the art school refugees Talking Heads, and the pop aspiring Blondie And they all met at such unlikely shrines as the aforementioned CBGB and the old Warhol hangout, Max's Kansas City. No one ever got up and officially proclaimed this motley crew of musical misfits a movement But as they began to draw increasingly larger audiences—audiences made up of people who, like themselves, were bored with the music on their radios and in their record stores—and as the critics began chronicling their exploits and singing their praises in print, a movement was indeed nurtured Eventually it was given a name Punk And no band symbolized it better than the Ramones. The group never campaigned to be the spokespersons of punk, but as their following swelled, and record companies began to sniff around, the band's image and style became issues of controversy While the Ramones fancifully thought of themselves as a nouveau bubblegum band with guts, most music industry executives saw their twelve-song, 20-minute bursts of rocking newspeak as a violent threat to the status quo, and many nervous jokes were made at their expense ("I would've walked out on them," one company president said, "but they were finished before I could get up") By the end of 1975, though, the Ramones had a recording contract with Seymour Stein's Sire Records, and it was their signing that paved the way for the rest of New York's— and ultimately the nation's—punk and new wave bands Their debut album, recorded for the incredibly low sum of $6000 and featuring 14 songs crammed into less than 30 minutes, exhilarated many, shocked more than a few and, in general, caused quite a stir upon its release in early 1976. While critics raved, radio programmers scratched their heads. What would their ad-conscious station managers say if they played a song whose only lyrics were "You're a loudmouth baby/You better shut it up/I'm gonna beat you up/'Cause you're a loudmouth baby"? The right people, though, got the joke—and the point—of the Ramones' music As summer arrived, the clarion call of "Hey ho, let's go!" was being sounded not only all across the U.S., but overseas as well it somehow seemed fitting that on the Fourth of July of 1976—the exact day of the American Bicentennial—the Ramones stood on a stage in London, England, and proclaimed rock & roll's new declaration of independance to an audience composed of the future members of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, Generation X, and, indeed, most of what would soon be the core population of the British punk scene. Early in 1977, the group released their second album,Ramones Leave Home, another fun-filled excursion into the realms of unconsciousness ("Carbona Not Glue"), self mutilation ("Suzy is a Headbanger"), electroshock therapy ("Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment"), and freelance military activity ("Commando") And, of course, "Pinhead" Partially inspired by the scene in Tod Browning's classic '30s horror film, Freaks, in which the title circus sideshow characters welcome a "normal" into their ranks, the cry of "Gabba gabba/we accept you/We accept you/One of us" became the official slogan of the House of Ramones, the supreme howl of liberation for rock's underclass of punks and new wavers. Hot on its heels that spring came "Sheena is a Punk Rocker," an infectious, anthemic tribute to the band's fans and their beloved hometown, and as the single made its way onto the Top 100 charts, its success served warning that the Ramones were well on their way to becoming a commercial, as well as artistic, force to be rackoned with. Rocket to Russia, released near the end of 1977, more than made good on that warning, for it established the stance, the philosophy, and the viability of the Ramones as never before. The bone-crunching muscularity of their live sound was finally captured accurately in the studio by producers Tony Bongiovi and Tommy (T. Erdelyi) Ramone, and engineer Ed Stasium. Songs like "Cretin Hop" and "Teenage Lobotomy" ("Now I guess I'll have to tell'em/That I got no cerebellum") showed that the Ramones' wit was waxing ever sharper, while "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" and "We're a Happy Family" ("We ain't got no friends/Our troubles never end/No Christmas cards to send/Daddy likes men") displayed a bite as sharp as the bark And with the glorious, Beach Boys-styled chart single "Rockaway Beach," the Ramones proved conclusively that "Sheena" was indeed no fluke, that they could merrily rock out with anyone, anytime. 1978 found the band crisscrossing the U.S. on their first full scale national tour as a headlining act, but at a price—a physically and emotionally drained Tommy announced at tour's end that he was leaving the band to concentrate on producing. His place was taken by former Voidoid Marc Bell (known from that day forth as Marky Ramone) Road to Rutn, the group's first record with their new drummer, found the Ramones expanding their horizons while consolidating their by now prodigious strengths. Tracks such as "Co Mental' and "I Just Want to Have Something to Do" struck with the savage efficiency expected of the world's nardest-rocking punk band, while the rollicking "I Wanna Be Sedated" and a strikingly poignant cover of the Searcher's British invasion classic, "Needles and Pins," (showcased here in its specially remixed 1979 single release form), once again underscored the fact that the Ramones could be as commercial as ABBA so long as the game was played on their own turf. Between these tunes and such heretofore uncharacteristic songs as the country-flavored "You Don't Come Close" (complete with—ahem—guitar solo!) and the haunting ballad, "Ouestioningly," it was clear that the Ramones, secure with past accomplishments as leaders of a worldwide revolution, were now ready for an internal evolution. Tabbed by film director Allan Arkush to guest star in a Roger Corman produced movie about life in America's secondary school system (Corman had no previous knowledge of the band, but gave them the nod when Arkush showed him the Cormanesque "Mutant Monster Beach Party" action comic issue of Punk magazine which featured Joey as the behemoth-battling, surfin' safari-ing hero), the Ramones finished 1978 in Hollywood making their celluloid debut in—and supplying the theme song for—Rock 'n' Roll High School, in which they led the dedicated students of Vince Lombardi High in that time-honored tradition of blowing up the school at the end of the term while in California, the band was approached by legendary record producer Phil Spector, who expressed his desire to work with them The following spring, the band returned to Los Angeles to record under Spector's supervision at the famed Cold Star Studios, site of all those Crystals, Ronettes, and Righteous Brothers classics True to his word, Spector succeeded in giving the Ramones his patented "wall of sound" treatment, as evidenced by "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio," a cascading, swirling salute to rock & roll's inspirational past, "Danny Says" (featuring the world's loudest acoustic guitar), and "Chinese Rock," a dark tale of hard times on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Over the course of the next few years, the Ramones continued to experiment, broadening the range of both their material and overall sound. With former 10CCer and British invasion hit songwriter Graham "Bus Stop" Gouldman at the controls, 1981's Pleasant Dreams brought out the more pop-oriented facets of the band's musical personality without any loss of identity After all, only the Ramone's could have you, blissfully humming along to the chorus of "The KKK Took My Baby Away" or giddily grabbing the nearest blunt object with which to smash your radio to smithereens ("We Want the Airwaves") Likewise, 1983's Subterranean Jungle, produced by Ritchie Cordell—uberlord of all those wonderful Tommy James and the Shondells records, and composer of the eternal teen mating call "I Think we're Alone Now"—saw the band adding a glistening shine to their music, reflected brightly on such jet-propelled fireballs as "Psycho Therapy" and "Outsider" And those bubblegum roots which were always implicit in the band's work finally emerged with the recording of "Little Bit of Soul" and the Cordell-co-authored "Indian Giver" (originally released solely as a B-side in the U K and presented here in album form for the very first time). The summer of 1983 marked yet another turning point in the Ramones' career. After more than five years of virtually incessant worldwide touring, the band was forced off the road for a spell due to a variety of reasons (Joey and Johnny were both hospitalized for illnesses, and Marky left the band to attend to personal matters). When they emerged, with new drummer Richie (Beau) Ramone in board, it was with a renewed and recharged sense of purpose incorporating the fiercest aspects of both the punk rock they'd originated and the hardcore/speedmetal genres they'd laid the groundwork for, 1984's Too Tough to Die (produced by old hands Tommy (Ramone) Erdelyi and Ed Stasium) answered any possible doubts about the band's rightful place as keepers of rock & roll's white-hot flame From the rockabillying "Mama's Boy" to the breakneck-paced "Warthog" (the latter featuring a rare vocal by Dee Dee), and from the shoulda-been-a-hit catchiness of "Howling at the Moon' (produced by the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart) to the disarmingly heartfelt "I'm Not Afraid of Life/Too Tough to Die was a towering reaffirmation of the Ramones' rock & roll principles Animal Boy (1986, produced by former Plasmatic Jean Beauvoir), continued the band's resurgence And among the album's many gems, like the headbanging title track and the ominous "Somebody Put Something in My Drink," came graphic evidence of the Ramones' growing maturity, in the form of the politically active "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg," a song that takes dead aim at a certain actor-turned-President we all know. With 1987's Halfway to Sanity—represented here by the affirmative-actioned "I Wanna Live" and the appropriately frantic "Bop 'Til You Drop"—and with the appearance of this collection, the Ramones commemorate two rather significant milestones They have, at this point, contributed ten studio albums' worth of mighty fine music to the world, and they are celebrating (with Marky Ramone back in tow, we might add) their 15th year as a working rock & roll band. A decade and a half after their humble beginnings at the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery, much of what fills the air on radio stations and the racks of record stores is Still tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk. So long as the Ramones continue to soldier on, however, there will also still be a living, breathing entity known as rock & roll. And something to believe in. ~Billy Altman

Source: original liner notes