ThreTuneTuesday - The Legacy of the Immortal Ramones
They say that great music never dies, it just fades away. Here in Mexico City, even that is being kept from happening, especially with the biggest favorites. The Beatles are one such examples, The Ramones another. When taking the metro, you will doubtlessly come across someone selling their music, typically entire discographies on burned CDs, which you can only say no to if you've already bought this collection before (back when you still had a device to reproduce CDs). So today I would like to explore the music of the Ramones, what it has brought us, and how it's enriched our musical world.
(Some) Pioneers of Punk
It is true, The Ramones were not the first band to experiment with fast paced rhythms, trashy distorted sounds, screaming lyrics, and an overall attitude of picking up skills along the way - if needed. If you read my post about Los Saicos, you'll notice how bands have been doing this since (at least) the sixties. Still, even within the realm of punk-rock the Ramones developed a distinct style, which later became known as Ramones Core, as other groups started adopting it.
What appealed to me most were the simple, yet catchy melodies, sounding almost like children's songs, that were so easy to follow along that pretty soon they got stuck in your head. Combined with the fast rhythm and heavy sounds it became ideal to dance to... or cook, or ride my bike, or do just about anything that didn't require a great deal of concentration. One great example for this is I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. Thinking about it, it almost sounds like some 1950's doo-wop hit, only that instead of getting a shiny studio polish, the song was driven through a meat grinder. If you ask me, that's exactly what it needed. And it's not their only such song. The same thing can be said about Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, or Rock'n Roll High School, among others.
A Whole Subgenre?
Not surprisingly, I was not the only one to appreciate this musical combination of sweet innocence and unbridled passion. In fact, my formative years of the 1990s seemed to have been loaded with punk bands aiming for this particular style, especially in the US. One of my favorites at that time was the group Rancid, whose album And Out Come The Wolves seems to have mastered it particularly well. Or, as it was the case, this happened to be their only album I kept listening to. Purist may interject here something like "Oh, aren't they like Green Day or Offspring? Can those sell-outs be actually called punk?" Whatever, I never cared. Sure, I knew lots of genuine garage bands who were way more punk... but also with less interesting sound in many cases. I mean, just check out Olympia WA:
RamonesCore From Across the Oceans
But it was not only American punks that got inspired by the Ramones. Bands from Europe and Japan adopted this style, and in many cases took it to a higher level. Have you heard of Hi Standard? They are a Japanese group playing the same style of music, with English lyrics sung with such a strong Japanese accent, that they have remained mostly uninteligible for me. In a way, this adds to their whole appeal, kinda like the distorted guitars. All in all, I would say they did an excellent job in conveying the same passion as The Ramones. Here is one of my favorites, Kids Are Alright:
The list of RamonesCore bands is long, getting longer the more you look for them. Though most are in fact from the US, the style has been adopted by groups like WIZO from Germany, or Bambix from the Netherlands. But for now, I want to leave you with these three examples, given the fact that it's a #ThreeTuneTuesday.
If you're interested in the #TTT contest, take a look at this post by @ablaze. (I suppose it is the most recent TTT prompt.) There you can share some tunes, and even have the chance to win something. Also, I encourage you to visit my Monday Music post collection, to get an impression of my musical tastes.