How the Ramones channelled some of pop’s biggest bands into their punk rock revolution
Pop music was in a particularly dark place during the mid-1970s. The days of exciting glam rock were on their way out, only to be replaced by a deluge of uninteresting, sanitised, pseudo-rockers who consistently failed to resonate with young audiences, particularly given the economic downturn and rising unemployment of the period, both in the US and the UK.
So, an alternative was born in the form of punk rock, with bands like The Clash, the Sex Pistols, and the Ramones attacking and subverting the perceived values of pop music through buzzsaw guitars and politically-charged songwriting.
It is the Ramones who are often credited with birthing the punk revolution in America, releasing their stunning self-titled debut album in 1976. Although that theory is easily disprovable, given that Patti Smith’s Horses arrived a year prior, and the likes of The Stooges and The MC5 were playing punk rock back in the 1960s, the Ramones nevertheless had a profound effect on the development and spread of punk, both in their native New York and further afield.
After all, they were one of the only early punk outfits to arrive with a strong, instantly recognisable image. With their blue jeans, leather jackets, and long hair, there was no mistaking the band for anybody else, and their music reflected that image, too. Blitzkrieg delivery, driving guitars, and the enigmatic vocals of Joey Ramone acted as a rallying cry for the entire movement. However, the band’s inspiration was perhaps a little different from their peers down at the CBGB club.
Punk rock existed in direct opposition to the world of pop commercialism, yet the Ramones regularly and eagerly drew upon their deep love of pop music within their own work, particularly 1960s-era pop like The Ronettes or Herman’s Hermits. Not only did the band perform a range of pop-centric covers over the years, from ‘Baby I Love You’ to ‘Surfin’ Bird’, but their love of pop was cemented even in their very first record.
Craig Leon was the producer on that debut album and, in 2016, he told The Guardian, “They were a return to streamlined, minimal rock with a strong pop element – they liked Herman’s Hermits and the Bay City Rollers as much as The Stooges.” Refuting the claim that they were the very first out-and-out punk outfit, the producer continued, “They were also very influenced by comic books and pop culture.”
“Remember Superman and the Bizarro World – where everyone was the antithesis of their Earth-like counterparts? The Ramones were the Bizarro World Beatles,” Leon declared. On a surface level, it might be hard to link songs like ‘Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue’ with the work of the Bay City Rollers, Herman’s Hermits, or, indeed, The Beatles, but once you dig into the inherent structures, chord progressions, and easily-digestible sounds of those tracks, you start to notice the band’s pop-inspired approach.
That perceived rough and ready punk sound of the band’s debut does something of a disservice to their studio work, which lasted for months and incorporated some rather unexpected influences. “It was more like the later Beatles albums where they started to use studio technology,” Leon shared. “On Ramones, there’s tubular bells, pipe organ, sound effects, guitar and drum overdubs, double-tracked vocals.”
He summarised, “They sounded primitive and raw, but we used sophisticated techniques to achieve that.”
So, the Ramones might have been instrumental in popularising the abrasive sounds of punk rock rebellion, but their sound and composition were much more closely attuned to the world of pop than any of their CBGB comrades’ subversive experimentation.
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