Ramones: self-titled [SIRE/RHINO/WARNER]

Why you'll love it

This Rhino pressing puts the 2016 remaster on 180g vinyl in a replica sleeve with a printed inner sleeve. Spin put it at the top of its 50 Most Essential Punk Records, and Rolling Stone ranked it No. 33 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• 2016 remaster
• Printed inner sleeve
• Replica sleeve
• Booklet included

About the album

Fourteen songs, seven days, $6,400. The Ramones didn't so much record their debut as get it done before lunch, and in doing so they rewired rock and roll. Hit Parader's Lisa Robinson saw them in New York and talked Danny Fields into managing them; Fields brought in Craig Leon to produce, and Leon got Sire's Seymour Stein to come and see the band. Recording started in January 1976.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" opens the record, and the pace, often well over 160 beats per minute, hardly lets up through "Beat on the Brat," "Judy Is a Punk," "Chain Saw" and "53rd & 3rd." Then there's "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," a sweet little pop song in a leather jacket, and a cover of Chris Montez's "Let's Dance" played like it's late for the bus.

Roberta Bayley shot the cover, four guys against a New York brick wall, for $125, and it's been imitated ever since. Its influence reaches all the way out to grunge and heavy metal. The longest song here runs two and a half minutes, which by Ramones standards counts as a prog suite.

Also at Kops: more Ramones on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Sire / Rhino (cat# 8122-79327-5), a reissue of the 1976 album.