Ramones Greatest Hits Vinyl

[Niklas Terki]

Butall I seem to hear these days regarding RSD is negative, be it the quality of the releases, the prices, the having to stand in line, yadda yadda yadda. But from where I sit, RSD should be Christmas for Ramones fans.

It sure feels like at least a of the Ramones releases currently buckling and bowing my record shelves are RSD in origin, such as this pretty decent 17-track greatest hits assembled by Morrissey (of all people). But just about the heppest Ramones-oid thing dropped in the annals of Ramones-oid RSD releases has to be The 1975 Sire Demos.

Say what you will about Record Store Day. I hear almost nothing but complaints about it anymore, at least online. And let\u2019s face it: Since I began writing my book, social media has become the extent of my socializing. I doubt I even remember which fork to use anymore, and can\u2019t remember the last movie I saw in a theater. And I certainly do not remember when my last trip to a record store happened.

It sure feels like at least a \u00BC of the Ramones releases currently buckling and bowing my record shelves are RSD in origin, such as this pretty decent 17-track greatest hits assembled by Morrissey (of all people). But just about the heppest Ramones-oid thing dropped in the annals of Ramones-oid RSD releases has to be The 1975 Sire Demos.

What\u2019s now housed on black-splattered clear vinyl are tapes produced by Tommy Ramone himself at New York\u2019s Dick Charles Studios, where he initially learned the recording arts in 1968. (He eventually moved on with some of the Dick Charles staff, who founded the original Record Plant, and he assistant engineered recordings for Jimi Hendrix, among others.) These demos were used to help secure the band\u2019s deal with Sire Records. According to the box set\u2019s booklet, they were sourced from the original 2-Track masters and transferred to 198/24 digital in 2016 at London\u2019s Abbey Road Studios, supervised by Leon. For whatever reason, these snapshots of what the early Ramones sounded like on one of their earliest trips to a recording studio didn\u2019t capture one\u2019s attention on a CD. This vinyl edition, specially produced by superstar mastering engineer Bill Inglot, does a better job of showcasing these tapes. Perhaps it\u2019s vinyl\u2019s inherent sonic properties, which some ears always favor over any digital format. But maybe it\u2019s just down to being a standalone release, like it always should\u2019ve been.

The 1975 Sire Demos patently reinforces the oft-reported maxim that the Ramones wrote everything on their first three albums well in advance, the arrangements and everything nailed down well in advance. Whether they recorded those songs in the order they were written is another story, one which may well be true. But as Tommy told TapeOp magazine in 2005, \u201CThe guys in the Ramones turned out to be not only colorful but also very talented. They were coming up with these fabulous original songs. We soon had something really powerful going. When we first went in the studio to cut our demo we were coming up with some unique recording ideas for the times. We decided to go backwards a bit. We decided to use hard left and right ping-pong stereo effects like we heard on old Beatles records. We wanted to make a record that sounded different. We ended up transferring those experiments onto our first album.\u201D

From opener \u201CLoudmouth\u201D\u2019s first downstroked eighth notes, it\u2019s apparent that every kink in the Ramones\u2019 game plan was fully ironed out at this point. This is the Ramones fully-formed and -realized, from the ripped denim knees to the ramalama crunch. It\u2019s a little tinnier and more indie than later on, sonically, but that Ramones sound is still there, every 1-2-3-4 in place. This can partly be blamed on the demo-level recording, and partly on not yet receiving the equipment upgrade from Sire. Hence there\u2019s no wall of Marshalls and SVTs saturating the tape, as came to pass just a few months later at Plaza Sound, above Radio City Music Hall.

Johnny\u2019s Black & Decker Mosrite guitar sound is fully present, if a little less beefy, due to his early employment of a Mike Matthews Freedom Amp, a solid state 55-watt thing powered by forty D-cell batteries(!!!), with a killer overdrive sound. Going by the video filmed in Arturo Vega\u2019s loft on February 3, 1976, Dee Dee was jacking into one of those old Kustom tuck-and-roll monstrosities, also transistorized. His tone here and in the video is the most notably different \u2013 punchier, with a lot more treble and upper mids. Tommy again pans the stringed instruments hard left and right, just like they\u2019d be on the first album. But it also sounds like he had Johnny layer a cleaner, undistorted second guitar beneath his roaring barre chords, mixing them close, adding some cut and note definition to the wall of filth.

At times, such as on \u201CI Don\u2019t Care,\u201D they are slower and perhaps a little clumsier than the Ramones of legend. And Joey phrases far more in his faux English accent, though the Ronnie Spector influence is fully present, about to take over the host body. You also hear him double-track his vocals for the first time, Tommy likely telling him, \u201CThis is how The Beatles did it!\u201D But from the minimalist packaging redolent of all mid-\u201970s indie punk releases and mid-\u201970s CBGB fliers to the classic pre-fame photos \u2013 Bob Gruen\u2019s delightful snap of Da Brudders on the subway, guitars in shopping bags, and Chris Stein\u2019s rare capture of Johnny smiling on the back \u2013 everything about The 1975 Sire Demos is perfect. Would this have thrilled the world the same way the proper first album did? Maybe, maybe not \u2013 Ramones was a lot more full-bodied in its production.

Overall, this is a chance to hear the early Ramones with fresh ears, like sitting in two different corners of the studio and getting entirely different points of view. For that reason, it\u2019s thrilling. The 1975 Sire Demos has been the Ramones album I have reached for the most the last few weeks. Hell, it\u2019s the only Ramones album I have played recently. And it sure is great to have a new Ramones album to listen to, after all this time.

Rocking a fuzzy bucket hat, chunky gold chain and a fur-lined, poofy pink jacket, Missy Elliott sits on a cinder block in front of a brick wall, seated next to an old-school boombox. Like the thematic content of Under Construction, the cover harks back to the golden age of hip-hop while still moving boldly into the future; despite the imagery, Elliott leans forward, eying something in the distance, always looking for the next thing.

The pop polymath and electronic music pioneer broke new ground with his synth- and sequencer-heavy solo album (separate from his work with YMO) and the cover art gives a vaguely surrealist impression of his creative mind; Hosono gazes serenely into the future as his hairline disappears into a pine forest skyline, with a glorious, heavenly collection of clouds hanging overhead.

Leading up to her debut album, the genre-blurring FKA Twigs made a name for herself on stunning visuals: music videos, EP covers, and even magazine shoots. This porcelain-sheen headshot was an exquisite introduction to the wonder of her music.

In 1969, artist Andy Warhol was approached by the Rolling Stones to create the cover art for their upcoming greatest hits album, Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2). Whatever Warhol created for the set was seemingly never used, but his concept of employing a working zipper on an album cover came to fruition on the cover of Sticky Fingers. With photographs by Warhol (focused on the bulging jeans of a still-unidentified male model) and graphic design by Craig Braun, the set would earn a Grammy Award nomination for best album cover.

A nod to the Afrofuturism of artists like Sun Ra, the artwork for Fear of a Black Planet was conceived by Chuck D, who imagined the titular Black planet eclipsing earth. Appropriately, given the interplanetary concept, the group hired NASA illustrator B.E. Johnson to draw the final design.

The innocence of a baby-sized Biggie on the cover of his classic debut Ready to Die contradicted the lyrical content inside. But that was the point: the album traced his life from beginning to a mournful, foreshadowing end, using the innocence of a child to illustrate how a cruel world imprints on unmolded minds.

It's time we reclaimed our favorite greatest hits albums and praised them for what they are: not the last word on a band, for sure, but an essential highlights reel that delivers pleasure after pleasure, with the least percentage of nonessential fat attached.

Erin Keane is Salon's Chief Content Officer. She is also on faculty at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University and her memoir in essays, "Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me," was named one of NPR's Books We Loved In 2022.

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