The Ramones - the best of the rest?

That is a good cover, they had a few other covers that I liked, Journey To The Center a of Yure Mind, 5 O Clock World.

 

¡Adios Amigos! (As far as I'm concerned, they went out with a bang!)
Brain Drain
Pleasant Dreams
Subterranean Jungle
Too Tough to Die
Mondo Bizarro
Animal Boy
Halfway to Sanity
Acid Eaters (easily my least favorite Ramones)

 

Yes, he did a good job on the Dee Dee numbers, like this one and Main Man.

 

Pleasant Dreams has the only Ramones material post-1978 that I ever have any desire to listen to so that gets my vote.

 

I own them all except for Animal Boy and Halfway To Sanity. I need to rectify that. Latter day Ramones tend to get short changed but I feel all of these records contain some great rock and roll, maybe not their best, but I reach for these albums quite often when I need a Ramones fix...and I feel one coming on.

 

I love The Ramones but I never bought anything beyond Rocket To Russia except for the novelty Acid Eaters.

> So, lets take it step further - what are the very best songs from all these post golden era albums?

 

"The KKK Took My Baby Away"

that's about it

 

I have every Ramones album. They all have something to offer. Pleasant Dreams is marvelous, as good an album as any of the first four IMO.

 

The first four are clearly the classic, must own records, but I like everything through Too Tough To Die. Beyond that, I kind of lost interest.

 

I think Too Tough To Die is generally considered their best post 70's album and a real return to form. Certainly in the UK, where it was quite popular and attracted some new fans.

 

I own all of the albums; each of them has something to offer. Here's my post End of the Century hit parade, with those first 3 being my favorites:

I Don't Wanna Grow Up
R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
Touring
She's a Sensation
The KKK Took My Baby Away
Psycho Therapy
Time Has Come Today
Too Tough to Die
Howling At the Moon (Sha-La-La)
Poison Heart
Substitute
Endless Vacation
I Wanna Live
Bop 'til You Drop
She Talks to Rainbows

 

I'm a bit of a fanboy where the Ramones are concerned so I own them all. My favorite post-End of the Century album is Too Tough To Die (1984) - it's their most badass record outside of the first four.

 

So far I have listened to the first 5 on the list (AKA their 6-10). You can't really get a good sense from one listen but does it seem like that in their first 4 or 5 albums their different sensibilities combined more consistently while in the later albums the songs tended to be more diverse (from Joey's pop to (I assume) Dee Dees hard core)?

I also take away from one listen that I should buy Too Tough to Die next.

 

Love 'em all. God bless The Ramones.

 

I have a long time friend who is a huge record collector and one of those people who prides himself on always being the first one to know about new "worthy" bands.

I discovered the Ramones through a good friend at work and until they played a small club in my town for the first time in March 1978, I was sure my work friend and I were the only two Ramones fans in town.

I played them for my collecting friend and he dismissed them immediately more than a bit smugly. He rebuffed my other attempts to get him to reconsider. Every one of my other music friends at the time did the same.

We were talking about the Ramones recently and now, he is saying that he loved these guys all along, and he even tried to imply that HE turned ME onto them. LOL!

I suspect that he is not the only one who has totally revised his initial opinion now that they are considered the massively innovative and influential artists that they should have been seen as all along.

So, cheers to all of you who were there first...

 

Agreed about Journey To The Center Of The Mind.

Another one that comes close to matching the original even though IMO, Joey should have had the vocals on that one rather than CJ.

 

I'm happy to see so many folks here who speak highly of Pleasant Dreams, and that it lead the pack (currently) in the poll.

I've always thought that this one, rather than End Of The Century, should have been the one to break out the band.

Regardless of Johnny's long held opinion, I still think Graham Gouldman's production is brilliant and really suits the songs.

 

Brain Drain is so overlooked. The extra production polish really brought out their songwriting.

 

Got 'em all, love 'em all. In my house, all Ramones is good Ramones!

 

Agreed. Don't Bust My Chops doesn't get mentioned much, but that may be my favorite song off that album.

 

Every song is great imo. I Believe in Miracles is a great opener too.

 

I haven't heard the last few, but looking at this list really makes me appreciate what a solid studio band these guys were. How many groups (esp in the punk genre) have this many great records? They're fun to collect as well

 

I originally gave this one a B in my earlier ranking post but now you have me thinking I may have shortchanged it a bit.

In the end, I gotta agree with theshape's quote above...

All Ramones is good Ramones...

 

I have them all, and love them all, but they vary in quality. I like Pleasant Dreams more now than I used to. Love All Quiet On The Western Front & Sitting In My Room. SJ was my first one and it and TTTD go back and forth as my favorites. It's been SJ for a few years; Outsider. Highest Trails Above, What'd You Do. And I always loved Wart Hog & Endless Vacation on TTTD. Animal Boy takes a big step down. The songs aren't that good though there are some good ones. I loved HTS went it came out, but I can see the songs aren't that good, but I loved their sound at that time. Brain Drain has much better songs though the snare is too up in the mix. Mondo is my least favorite as a collection of songs. It just never grabbed me. It needed more Dee Dee songs to balance out Joey's. Acid Eaters was my least favorite overall, but now I like it much more. Adios was a great album to go out on. The songs were really good. For later I'd go with Brain Drain & Adios. For mid period, I'd go with SJ and TTTD.