1977 was a banner year for punk rock. For many, it stands as the high-water mark for the genre. The press was talking about this strange new movement made up of of energetic, angry, fast-paced, stripped down rock and roll bands who spat in the face of social norms. Parents everywhere were scared to death of what would become of the youth, pearls were clutched in never before seen numbers, and all of the most important early punk rock bands put out major releases that year. Among others, The Clash released their debut record, The Sex Pistols released their debut--and only--record before flaming out spectacularly the following January, and The Damned's Damned Damned Damned hit the shelves. Of course, all of these releases were bookended by the TWO killer records the Ramones put out that year: Leave Home (January of '77) and Rocket to Russia (November of '77).
Leave Home had been, like their debut album, a bit of a commercial disappointment for the Ramones. Despite it's critical success, artistic influence, and how beloved it was by the Ramones' ever more rabid fanbase, the public at large just wasn't snapping the album up off the shelves, and the songs weren't getting the heavy radio play that the band needed to make that happen. Despite this, the band and Seymour Stein--head of Sire Records--still believed that success was just around the corner. They were getting tighter and faster as a band. Their following was growing. Punk rock was in the news. They were overdue for a hit at this point. It was definitely gonna happen any time now. Based on his love for their summer of 1977 single, Sheena is a Punk Rocker, Seymour Stein urged them to get back into the studio to record their next great album. The one that would surely catapult them into superstardom. It was time for the world to hear Rocket to Russia!
The first thing to point out about the cover of this album is it's similarity to the cover of their debut. Black and white. Check. Looking tough. Check. Brick wall. Check. Is it just basically a copy of the first album's cover? Yeah. Yeah it is. Is that bad? Nah. I can't fault a band for going back to what works. I mean, the Ramones are at their best when all the songs sound the same, so why not album covers, too? Nobody is flipping us off this time, and we don't get to see Tommy's bellybutton, though. But, hey! We get a splash of glorious pink at the top for the title! Black and pink will always work. If you don't believe me, just ask The Hart Foundation. It's a great cover. One of their best, but not quite as good as the debut. The debut works a bit better, for two reasons: First, because it's a head-on photo. This one's just a biiiit skewed, and you know how I feel about the Ramones and off-kilter album covers. Second: this one lacks the hint of dorkiness that lurked just below the surface of the original. Now everyone's clothes fit, nobody's on their tippy toes, and Dee Dee isn't all, "What should I do with my hands?" These guys look like legit badasses. I like my Ramones just a little weird, usually. I mean, these songs are about getting lobotomies, chewing bubblegum, and being broke.
Recording for Rocket to Russia began on August 21, 1977. It was given a budget of nearly $30,000, which was significantly more than the previous two albums. It was once again officially produced by Tommy Ramone and Tony Bongiovi, but in reality Ed Stasium did a lot of the producing on this one, as well as serving as recording engineer. On the first day of the sessions, Johnny brought in a copy of The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen single and told Stasium, "These guys ripped us off and I want to sound better than this." Stasium replied, "No problem."
And deliver on his promise, Stasium did. Rocket to Russia turned out to be the most kickass sounding Ramones record yet, and it definitely blew away The Sex Pistols' single. It takes the best elements of the previous two records and advances them to new levels of awesome. Mirroring the cover, the sound of this record is like the stark grittiness of the first record combined with a splash of lush color from the second. Remember how I said Johnny's guitar on Leave Home lost some of its buzzsaw tone? Well, the buzzsaw sound from Ramones is back and better than ever! And just like Leave Home, it's in stereo now! Dee Dee's bass is meaner and punchier than we've heard up until now. The drums...holy cow the drums! They sound so freakin' good. No doubt as a result of Tommy's increasing competency as a drummer--remember, he only started playing drums because they couldn't find anyone else who could--but also because of the time and effort Ed Stasium put into to capturing their natural sound. Joey’s vocals just keep getting better and better on these records, as well. On Rocket to Russia, his vocals are pristine. Once again, the double tracking effect has been dialed back, giving us a focused, tight vocal sound that highlights his excellent performance.
The secret sauce in this album's production, though, was that Ed Stasium for the first time on a Ramones record utilized rooms mics to capture the natural sound of the room as the Ramones laid down their tracks. Though used sparingly in the final mix, it was the element that took the entire thing to the next level.
Something that deserves more attention than I've yet given it, is these guys' increasing use of two and three part harmony. On Leave Home, they definitely made a big improvement in this area, and Rocket to Russia ups the ante. A lot of these songs include lush harmony from the backing vocals, approaching Beach Boys territory.
Now, as much as I've talked up this record's sound, I do need to mention a small flaw. Three of the songs here contain the first real missteps the band and their producers would take with overdubs. They aren't egregious errors, but they are small blemishes on what would otherwise be a perfectly produced album. I'll point them out when we get there. Still, the record sounds absolutely incredible.
It's time we talked about how the Ramones recorded their albums. The band would start by recording the base tracks for the album together, live, just like they would play the songs at a concert. Some effort was put into isolating the guitar amp, bass amp, and drums so that the individual microphones on all the instruments could pick up a clean signal, mostly free of sound from the instruments they weren't meant to be recording. This would render a guitar track, a bass track, and a set of tracks for all the drums and cymbals. After these tracks were recorded, Johnny would record another guitar track--a duplicate of what he already recorded--so that this second track could be panned to the opposite speaker from the first guitar track in the final mix. Joey would record all of his vocals. Finally, all the backing vocals and instrumental overdubs (extra guitars, organ, tambourine, etc) would be recorded.
For the 40th anniversary of this album, Ed Stasium created a brand new mix, called the Tracking Mix. This mix is simply the base tracks that Tommy, Dee Dee, and Johnny laid down, plus the best vocal take that Joey did on each song. No overdubs. No double tracking. Minimal backing vocals. It's a bit like seeing the band in concert. The guitar is panned to the left speaker, and the bass is panned to the right. It's reminiscent of the mixing on their debut album, but even more minimal. This mix is absolutely killer. It'll put some hair on your toes, to be sure. It's not the definitive way to listen to the album, but it is a great way to listen to it. However, it does contain what should be the definitive versions of two of the songs from this record. I'll mention the tracking mix in my individual song reviews at a few points, but overall, I will be talking about the original 1977 mix.
Now, without further ado, onto the songs!
Cretin Hop - written by Ramones
Rocket to Russia starts off, appropriately, with a bang. Right away we get a taste of Johnny's new and improved guitar tone. It sounds like equal parts buzzsaw and cheese grater on concrete. It's a thing of beauty. The guitar introduces us to the main riff of the song, and it's one of the greatest riffs the Ramones will ever write. Johnny bounces around on big open E and A chords before settling, momentarily, on open D. The raw energy contained in this breakneck riff sets the tone for what our ears are about to witness for the next 31 minutes and 46 seconds: sheer, unadulterated, maniacal, fun-times-ahead rock and roll.
This song serves almost as a sequel to Blitzkrieg Bop, from their first record. People who feared or misunderstood the Ramones and their fans labeled them dummies. Idiots. Cretins. The Ramones took this on as a badge of honor, dubbed their fans cretins, and then wrote a badass song about their fans rocking out at a Ramones concert. The result was this masterpiece of punk rock greatness.
After each verse, the song moves back to the main riff, this time with breaks in between the repetitions, where Joey chants, "One two three four, cretins wanna hop some more" and, "Four five six seven, all good cretins go to heaven!" If you don't like this one, go to the doctor for a checkup. You might be dead inside.
10/10 bottles of formaldehyde
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Rockaway Beach - written by Dee Dee
"ONE TWO THREE FOUR!" After the abrupt ending of Cretin Hop, Dee Dee immediately counts the band into the second half of what might be the greatest one-two punch opening duo of songs in punk rock history. If you think you know a better one-two punch than Cretin Hop and Rockaway Beach, I challenge you to drop it in the comments below.
Ever since the days of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have pondered what exactly would happen if The Beach Boys huffed a bunch of glue and dialed up the distortion on their amps. The answer is Rockaway Beach. Dee Dee's bubblegum/punk/surf song--written about a local beach he loved--is rad as hell. It surely should have been a great summertime hit, if only it wasn't released in early NOVEMBER. The stars simply refused to align for the Ramones.
The song opens with a few bars of the guitar and bass doing a ripping little half step slide riff from D flat to D, before plunging full speed into the verse progression. Joey begins singing the infectious lyrics about wanting to catch some sun at the beach, while Dee Dee's bass keeps doing that little half step slide, now from A flat to A. The amount of momentum generated by this little trick is massive. Once again, the Ramones use just a few simple tools to do great things.
After a few lines, the verse gives way to the masterpiece of a chorus where Joey sings, "Rock, rock, Rockaway Beach," accompanied by juicy backing vocals providing three part harmony. AND THEN--Dee Dee refuses to quit. It's like he was trying to write the greatest song of all time--we get the completely, unapologetically, awesome post-chorus riff in 5/4 time!! What?! These guys are jumping into different time signatures now?! Hold onto your ass!
Following this post-chorus riff, we get a nice bridge with some angelic backing Oooooos providing yet more harmony to Joey's lead vocals about how it's really not hard to get to Rockaway Beach.
If you think this is getting anything less than 10/10 bottles of formaldehyde, you've had too much shock treatment. This is a top 5 Ramones song, all-time.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow - written by Joey
Leave Home gave us a fantastic Joey-penned ballad in the number three spot, and Rocket to Russia follows suit, with the best ballad these guys have done yet. Johnny turns down the distortion on his guitar--and is accompanied by an acoustic guitar strumming along with him--for this three chord lamentation about a relationship that's unfortunately run it's course.
Quick side note: It's actually a pretty rare occurrence for these guys to write a song that contains just three chords, though they're often characterized as being a "three-chord band." Almost all of their songs are made up of at least four chords, and it's not uncommon for them to contain up to six. Across their entire discography, they probably wrote less than twenty songs that are only three chords.
Anyway, Joey's voice is the star of the show on this beautiful, atmospheric tune. His repeated Oh oh ohs are filled with sadness and regret. When he declares "It's over, all over. It's true, it's true," we feel his pain. Joey ends the song by singing, "Someone had to pay the price," which is really just the best way to end a song about breaking up.
There's also a simple instrumental bridge where we're left to soak in the sentiment and contemplate the fragile nature of human relationships. Man, this is getting kind of serious. Quick, somebody write a song about a goofy ass murder or something!
10/10 bottles of formaldehyde
Locket Love - written by Dee Dee
Back in the day, when I first got Rocket to Russia, I didn't really enjoy this song very much. I saw the title, heard Joey sing, "Lovely, lovely locket love," and kind of rolled my eyes. Then I actually started paying attention to the lyrics and realized Dee Dee wrote this song from the perspective of a killer who's murdering somebody by hanging them with a friggin' chain! Just when you thought these guys were maybe moving away from grisly scenes from b-movies. This song is actually a ton of fun. We get some nice harmonies and some really tasteful sleigh bells that up the cheeriness level of the song.
But I've got a bit of a problem with this one. It's about the production. This song, on it's original mix, has a clean-ish guitar overdubbed on top of Johnny's buzzsaw attack. Johnny's guitar is definitely still there, but the overdubbed guitar is more prominent, and it's playing a quarter note rhythm instead of Johnny's eighth notes. It gives a song a kind of fun bounce, but it also softens the song and makes it seems a little slower than it is. When rating this song, I had to deduct a whole point for this. I want that Ramones-y eighth notes barrage, not a bouncy quarter note feel played by somebody else.
The definitive version of the song is definitely the tracking mix, even if you do lose out on some of the backing harmony and the sleigh bells. The song just has more life to it without that overdubbed guitar.
8/10 bottles of formaldehyde (9/10 for the tracking mix version)
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I Don't Care - written by Joey
10/10 bottles of formaldehyde (8/10 for the tracking mix version)
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Do You Wanna Dance? - written by Bobby Freeman
I Wanna Be Well - written by Joey
If you haven't picked up on it by now, these guys have a habit of writing songs about what they want or don't want and stating it as plainly as possible. No beating around the bush for the Ramones. Here's what they want. Here's what they don't want. For those of you scoring at home, here's the list up to this point:I Can't Give You Anything - written by Dee Dee
It's a fun little song where Joey warns any potential romantic partners that as a Ramone, he has no money. You see, people won't buy these freakin' records! It's a good song that would have just made it in at an 8, but the production on the original mix kinda sucks. They put another one of those clean-ish guitars on it so soften the sound up a bit. Why? This is a Ramones record. We wanna hear the Ramones, not random dude #5 trying to apologize for Johnny's playing by doing generic guitar part #9. (I think the person who played the overdub guitar might have actually been Ed Stasium, so not exactly a random dude, but you get my point.) The tracking mix is definitely superior here. Listen to that version. It actually sounds like the Ramones!
7/10 bottles of formaldehyde (8/10 for the tracking mix version)
Ramona - written by Ramones
Another slow one here. It's a song about a groupie who breaks Joey's heart when it turns she's actually a spy for the BBI. It threatens to slip into the same boring territory that What's Your Game fell into on the last album, but then the chorus comes along and elevates the whole thing into a pretty decent Ramones song, as Joey sings, "Ooooooooooooo little Ramona." That's a good part. The song earns it's keep on that part. Plus, we get some really nice Johnny palm mutes and some decent harmonies. Also, I named one of my dogs after this song.The tracking mix adds a lost verse to the end of the song, but it's just a repeat of the first one, and the trade off is losing the harmonies. So it's definitely not worth it.
7/10 bottles of formaldehyde (6/10 for the tracking mix version)
Surfin' Bird - written by Carl White, Alfred Frazier, John Harris, and Turner Wilson
Wait, we get TWO cover songs on this album and they're both really good? Hell yeah! This song reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was performed by The Trashmen in 1963, but it's actually a combination of the songs Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and The Bird's the Word by doo-wop group, The Rivingtons. The Trashmen version rules, but the Ramones do it even better. That's probably blasphemy to fans of 60's garage rock, but I Don't Care. Blasphemy is great fun, anyway.
Somebody probably gave this song a lobotomy, because it is absolutely insane. The guitar and bass just hang on an A chord for a billion-and-a-half years as Joey endlessly obsesses over exactly what the word is. (Hint: it's the bird!) Finally we get a bit of relief as Johnny and Dee Dee play a quick E and D, only to start this cycle of madness all over again. After doing this for while, we get a break. The band stops as Joey declares, "Surfin' Bird!" Then he absolutely looses his mind, performing nonsensical vocal...I'm realizing I don't even know how to describe this part. Just listen to it. It's cooler than the other side of the abominable snowman's pillow.
This song is in serious contention for the title of Greatest Cover Song the Ramones Ever Did. It's absolutely perfect for their brand of minimalist punk rock. Also, did you notice that these guys are putting together a nice little collection of surfy songs between Leave Home's California Sun and this record's Rockaway Beach, Sheena is a Punk Rocker, and now, Surfin' Bird?
Why is it Always This Way? - written by Ramones
She was going to the wash and dry
She was outside hitchin' a ride
Now she's lying in a bottle of formaldehyde
Totals:
Average song score: 9.1
Flow/Mood/Production/etc: 9.5
Cover art score: 9.4
Final album rating: A+
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