Isabelle Gall wrote:I don't understand what i'm supposed to be listening to, or for, with the Ramones. Or what part is supposed to be not boring.

Yes, they amounted to a degree zero of sorts for an entire generation of artists and musicians who built a lot of the groundwork which we blithely take for granted now. Even if you're of the imagine what popular music would sound like if there had been no Beatles and Dylan school, you couldn't possibly deny that their influence extends right into the very infrastructure which your argument is based from, as opposed a 'mere' stylistic topping for your pitchfork punk cake.

However, I still don't get it at all. Sorry.

You're thinking too hard about The Ramones.

Is this some kind of a joke? Not Crap.

If you don't like the first album, then you basically don't like rock and roll.

I suppose that, in the way Buddy Holly bored and still bores me, the Ramones bore others who can't readily imagine what life was like without them or their influence nor what it was like to realize that someone had crossed the boundary that makes up the time before and after the Ramones' formation. The Ramones are, after all, rudimentary and cartoonish.

I can imagine reasons that people would dismiss or dislike the Ramones, but I am constitutionally unable to really understand on an emotioanl or aesthetic level.

Isabelle Gall wrote:Or what part is supposed to be not boring.

All those bits between the gaps between the songs? I could go through one of the songs with a timeline and point out all the great little parts but that would kind of miss the point.

W/R/T:

Ranxerox wrote:I suppose that, in the way Buddy Holly bored and still bores me, the Ramones bore others who can't readily imagine what life was like without them or their influence nor what it was like to realize that someone had crossed the boundary that makes up the time before and after the Ramones' formation. The Ramones are, after all, rudimentary and cartoonish.

(my italics)

Does anyone actually listen to music this way? Does anyone really give a shit about their historical or musical importance (and of course they were important) when they hear Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat On The Brat, Judy Is A Punk or any of the others?

When I was sixteen me and my drummer formed our first band trying to mix 60s pop with Black Sabbath and found ourselves failing miserably. One day I stumbled across the first Ramones album in the local music shop and bought it on the strength of the cover and song titles alone.
It literally changed everything for me. It changed the people I wanted to hang out with, the kind of music I want to hear and play, my views of popular culture in general etc.
My band quickly became a Ramones rip-off band and though we've since moved on from that (I think) their influence is still undeniable. (I still play the Mosrite!)
Nothing any of us hold dear would exist without them. I'd still be listening to Led Zeppelin wondering why my life was going to shit.

The Ramones = not crap

I understand people who do not like the Ramones.

I do not understand people who do not understand the Ramones. Are you using the right word?

They were simple. Many of their lyrics were trivial and repetetive. They definitely were like the Monkees at a later point in their career.

BUT they put out more rocking anthems than the Rolling Stones. Seriously. They embodied (at least on stage and studio) the chisel tip of the punk tanto.

I guess if you didn't hear them until after high school then you might not be so open to them. You lose.

steve wrote:...I can think of everything I've done and experienced of significance in the last 27 of those 43 years....I can think of almost everyone I know or have known since I was a teenager...
I owe all of that to the Ramones.

This is incredibly true for so many people. Granted those four guys may not have set out to do this but it happened nonetheless. NOT CRAP.

SecondEdition wrote:If you don't like the Ramones, then you basically don't like rock and roll.

I altered your statement to better express how I feel.

'Does anyone actually listen to music this way? Does anyone really give a shit about their historical or musical importance (and of course they were important) when they hear Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat On The Brat, Judy Is A Punk or any of the others?'

Well, if you were around in the 70s, you didn't have a choice but to hear the Ramones in this way, and that's the point I was trying to make. Their arrival was profoundly seismic. Listening to them in that context, when there were few if any antecedents, made the experience all the more exciting, bizarre, confusing, and instructive. You didn't have to draw up flow charts and family trees. In 1977 you could not listen to the Ramones without being impressed by the newness, without taking notice and making up your mind about them, without thinking about how to categorize and process them.

Ramones-haters, here's what you are missing: PURE JOY.

I can see how some confusion has arisen in this poll.

The Ramones wrote the song 'Rockaway Beach'.

Maybe if you PM Kerble he can change your votes to Not Crap for you.