This year, Every Sunday Evening, Album Rock WXYG, The GOAT will be featuring a full album at 8:00 PM from the halcyon musical days of 1976. 1976 was one of the top Years in Album Rock history. Another year of tough choices every week. So many great ones to choose from. After 52 Weeks of featuring so many of the great albums that debuted in 1975, next Sunday we will be moving on to another amazing year of ALBUM ROCK EXCELLENCE, 1976.
We hope you’ll tune in at 8:00 PM, Next Sunday, March 1st, 2026, for “Ramones”, the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones, released on April 23, 1976, by Sire Records.
After Hit Parader editor Lisa Robinson saw the band at a gig in New York City, she wrote several articles about the group and asked Danny Fields to be their manager. Fields agreed an convinced Craig Leon to produce Ramones, and the band recorded a demo for prospective record labels. Leon persuaded Sire president Seymour Stein to listen to the band perform, and he later offered the band a recording contract. The Ramones began recording in January 1976, needing only seven days and $6,400 (equivalent to $36,200 in 2025) to record the album.
The album cover, photographed by Punk magazine's Roberta Bayley, features the four members leaning against a brick wall in New York City. The record company paid only $125 ($693.46 in 2024) for the front photo, which has since become one of the most imitated album covers of all time. The back cover depicts an eagle belt buckle along with the album's liner notes. After its release, Ramones was promoted with two singles, which failed to chart. The Ramones also began touring to help sell records; these tour dates were mostly based in the United States, although two were booked in Britain.
Violence, drug use, relationship issues, and humor, were prominent in the album's lyrics. The album opens with "Blitzkrieg Bop", which is among the band's most recognized songs. Most of the album's tracks are up-tempo, with many songs measuring at well over 160 beats per minute. The songs are also rather short; at two-and-a-half minutes, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" is the album's longest track. Ramones contains a cover of the Chris Montez song "Let's Dance".
Ramones was unsuccessful commercially, peaking at number 111 on the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. Despite its poor chart performance, it received glowing reviews from critics. Many later deemed it a highly influential record, and it has since received many accolades, such as the top spot on Spin magazine's list of the "50 Most Essential Punk Records". Ramones is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential punk albums of all time, and it had a significant impact on other genres of rock music, such as grunge and heavy metal. The album was ranked at number 33 in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", maintaining the ranking in a 2012 revision. It was placed first in the same publication's list of the "100 Best Debut Albums of All Time" in 2022. It was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2014 for 500,000 copies sold in the US.
With the three-chord assault of "Blitzkrieg Bop," The Ramones begins at a blinding speed and never once over the course of its 14 songs does it let up. The Ramones is all about speed, hooks, stupidity, and simplicity. The songs are imaginative reductions of early rock & roll, girl group pop, and surf rock. Not only is the music boiled down to its essentials, but the Ramones offer a twisted, comical take on pop culture with their lyrics, whether it's the horror schlock of "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement," the gleeful violence of "Beat on the Brat," or the maniacal stupidity of "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." And the cover of Chris Montez's "Let's Dance" isn't a throwaway -- with its single-minded beat and lyrics, it encapsulates everything the group loves about pre-Beatles rock & roll. They don't alter the structure, or the intent, of the song, they simply make it louder and faster. And that's the key to all of the Ramones' music -- it's simple rock & roll, played simply, loud, and very, very fast. None of the songs clock in at any longer than two and half minutes, and most are considerably shorter. In comparison to some of the music the album inspired, The Ramones sounds a little tame -- it's a little too clean, and compared to their insanely fast live albums, it even sounds a little slow -- but there's no denying that it still sounds brilliantly fresh and intoxicatingly fun.
It has been WELL established that Ramones' debut record isn't only the greatest album the Ramones ever made, but it's also the greatest punk albums, one of the greatest debut albums from anyone, one of the greatest albums ever recorded, AND definitely one of the best albums of 1976. That's a lot of feats that this band reached with just one record to their name at the time. Those first words "Hey! Ho! Let's Go!" are instantly recognizable. I can go on and on about the lyrics of "Chainsaw", the swing of "Judy is a Punk", and the imagery of "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World", but what do you need me for? You can call this a waste of time because I'm stating the obvious: The Ramones' eponymous first record is a must-have album for ANYONE.
Tune In and Turn On Sunday evening, March 1st, and every Sunday evening at 8:00 PM for The GOAT'S "The Long Play with Al Neff”.
