Were the Ramones punk?

[budda12ax7]

Well, Good Charlotte was considered punk for a few days. I would yes, the Ramones were punk. NOW, with that being said, they were not hard core punk such as Minor Threat or Black Flag.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

The Ramones and The Sex Pistols were both pop acts, and recycling has always been a feature of pop music. 'Rock' doesn't figure in the best Punk music.

Were The Ramones punk? Of course they were. Punk was an attitude, not necessarily a nihilistic one, and certainly not a style of music or dress.

[jakeisjake]

the Ramones were very different from the rock that came before them...i dont' think they would have been called "bubble gum" in the 70s. maybe compared to the louder, angrier hardcore bands...but those bands rode the Ramones' train.

i think they were punk. in fact, as i remember it, they were THE punks.

[jagstang]

PUNK is the attitude of doing something your way. Is something punk or not? I don't mind. Fuck stereotyped thinking.

[scottT]

PUNK is the attitude of doing something your way. Is something punk or not? I don't mind. Fuck stereotyped thinking.

How punk of you. But is it just the attitude of doing something your own way? That is a philosophy, and while it may be a characteristic many artist's have, I think it's obvious that there are enough similarities among certain bands at a certain time to categorize punk in a way that has meaning.

Otherwise, we are left with this:

I think this is one of the better resources on the issue of what is or isn't punk

The Following Bands Are Punk:
Half Japanese, Red Crayola, Pastels, Dead Kennadys, Fugazi, Rocket From The Crypt, Replacements, Ramones, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Fall, Softies, Halo Benders, Beat Happening, 13 Floor Elevators, Mountain Goats, Bill Haley & The Comets, Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground, Branch Manager, Stooges, Leaving Trains, Kicking Giant, John Coltrane, Daniel Johnson, Husker Du, Minute Men, Born Against, Bananas, Xenakis, John Cage, GodHeadSilo, Hasil Atkins, Legendary Strdust Cowboy, Shaggs, Shockabilly, Bevis Frond, Can, Crash Worship, Delta 74, Dub Narcotic S.S., Negativland, Leadbelly, N.W.A., Wu-Tang Clan, Residents, Weird Paul, Velvet Monkeys, Junk Monkeys, Jandek, Electric Eels, Mirrors, Pere Ubu, Neu!, Fugs, Gods, Holy Modal Rounders, Tom Waits, Pussy Galore, X-Ray Specs, Manimals, Public Enemy, Monorchid, LaMonte Young, B-52's 1st LP, Smiths, Suicide, Dead Milkmen, Miles Davis, El Vez, MC5, NoMeansNo, Lil' Bunnies, Sun City Girls, Pouges, Fred Lane, Prehensile Monkey-Tailed Skink, Devo, God Is My Co-Pilot, Unwound, Television, Lungfish, Carl Perkins, Nation of Ulysses, Pink Floyd's First LP (ONLY), Chrome, Weird Al Yankovic's First LP, Big Black, Old Skull, Clash, Operation Ivy, Throbbing Gristle, etc., etc., etc.

[Larry Mal]

I think it's worth bearing in mind the difference between punk and the hardcore that followed it.

"Westerberg recalls that "playing that kind of noisy, fake hardcore rock was getting us nowhere, and it wasn't a lot of fun. This was the first time I had songs that we arranged, rather than just banging out riffs and giving them titles." By 1983, the band would sometimes perform a set of cover songs intended to antagonize whoever was in the audience. Westerberg explained that the punks who made up their audience "thought that's what they were supposed to be standing for, like 'Anybody does what they want' and 'There are no rules... but there were rules and you couldn't do that, and you had to be fast, and you had to wear black, and you couldn't wear a plaid shirt with flares ... So we'd play the DeFranco Family, that kind of shit, just to piss 'em off."

But in the beginning, punk was a fairly liberal term that applied to things that were just more or less out of the mainstream or part of a scene that simply viewed the increasing professionalism of mainstream rock and roll as being tired (it was) and boring (it was) and pretentious (it was).

But that scene soon coalesced into the very boring hardcore thing.

I feel like my kids aren't going to understand the difference between punk and other rock and roll any more than you understand the cultural importance of Beethoven and others straddling the line between the classical era and the romantic. Like, sure, you read about it in a book and shit, but unless you lived then and saw that change, it's all just old music.

So, are the Ramones punk? Sure, whatever. Who cares.

Someone above said something about the Sex Pistols being "manufactured". Man, I have no idea how that trope keeps getting recycled. The Sex Pistols are not only great, but the cultural impact they had was nothing that was manufactured by anyone other than Johnny Rotten. The story of the Sex Pistols is fucking amazing.

[shadowplay]

To the OP: Retrospectively by late 76 yes..but they never wanted it. From the books I’ve read, they really wanted to be the bay city rollers (which was cited by DeeDee and Tommy)..bubblegum pop....and the sound they actually achieved came about from musical ineptitude....but they had the willpower, self belief and importantly the ability to write decent songs. They were very ambitious and wanted to be top of the charts, and attempted to do that all the way through into the 80's. Johnny Ramone hated the punk label at the beginning...he didn't want his band to be lumped in with the rowdy Sex Pistols (Johnny hated their bowl cuts and ripped jeans in return) etc...but ultimately he had to accept it and embrace it, as in the end the fans decided for them what they were and ultimately were paying their bills.

As for what Punk is...for me it was the Sex Pistols from 75-77 and inexorably linked to that time period and it can't live outside or beyond that. Nonsense that they copied the Ramones, most of the Pistols songs were written in '75 prior to them ever having heard of them and the fabled Ramones gig wasn't 'til July 76. For me the two bands couldn't be further apart, sonically, stylistically, lyrically..

My favourite Ramones record is Leave Home...but it totally sounds like a 60's garage'y Phil Spector record to me..

I think Philip answers the question in a concise and knowledgeable way and isn't just spunking the first thing that comes into his head.

This thread is outside my area of expertise and experience such as it is but this answer runs truest to me, though I've always felt that they also had some Glam Rock in their bones, which I guess the Bay City Rollers were adjacent to but more along the lines of a slim hipped amphetamine Slade (with further shouts to Suzi Quatro, and The Sweet). I've not played the Ramones in a really long time but I have an idea their drums are quite glam influenced.

Of course this thread is running a course like pretty much every thread on punk and getting filled with daftie posts but hey ho that's the way these things go.

D

[marqueemoon]

I think they were probably punk at the time. That's the only standard that matters IMO.

[sammynb]

It's interesting reading people's definition of punk in this thread and speaks volumes for how we hear and interpret things differently, a lot of it has to do with the time and place for both the musicians and the listener..
As a matter of time and place, The Ramones were definitely punk but musically you can hear, as eggwhest said, they wanted to be something else.
The Clash, are they punk? Of course they are but musically they also wanted to be something else.
The Saints, are they punk? Of course they were but they didn't want to be and when they got to England in 1977 and once they saw that they didn't fit the "image" they left as quickly as they could.

[budda12ax7]

Ice Cube was punk as fuck....

SO was/is Dre......

Junior Brown is punk....

Shaun White is punk....

What is the commonality between them..

[Unicorn Warrior]

I liked the Ramones when I was in middle school. Then I discovered the early Misfits for a bit. I'll always enjoy their contributions, but I grew out of them both fairly quick. I really like the broad blanket of punk though. Punk was an interesting era because it was an incubation period for better genres to birth from. Grunge, ska, post punk, ...they're all subsets of subsets

We're the Ramones punk? Yes.

[cestlamort]

Absolutely.
As is Sheena.

[SY6655321]

in fact, as i remember it, they were THE punks.

this is the correct answer.

[kimson]

Yes, but I'd say they weren't "punk rock" (the genre most people tend to associate with "punk" these days); instead they were "punk pop", a sort of parallel genre that had a very different lineage but happened to take a very similar shape around the same time.

I wish I could draw a chart (everyone wants to see a good chart when talking about music, right?), but here's a simplified version:

PUNK ROCK: blues > (rock'n'roll) > blues rock ("the Rolling Stones school") > hard rock > punk rock

PUNK POP: (blues) > rock'n'roll > pop rock ("the Beatles school") > glam rock/pop > punk pop

Generally speaking, I guess the main difference is that whereas "punk rock" is dark and subversive (at least in form), "punk pop" is upbeat and moderate (again, at least in form).

Or maybe I'm way off, I don't know.

Anyway, I don't really care for the Ramones, they are just too poppy for my tastes. (Pretty much the only song I actually don't mind listening to is "Poison Heart" off of Mondo Bizarro.)

[budda12ax7]

However....THEN>>>. being less punk is actually being more punk since being punk has some sort of DIY type sensibility to it. So if you aren't really trying to be punk, then you are actually in fact being punk as fuck.




punk god