Reviews
 What Happened?
The Lone Sharks
Nine Lives
Steve Winwood
Moneyland
Various Artists
I'm Not There (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists
Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond
Toby Keith's 35 BIGGEST Hits
Toby Keith
It's A Shame About Ray (Collector's Edition)
The Lemonheads
About a Son
Otis Blue (Collector's Edition)
Otis Redding
Loaded
Wood Brothers
|
For decades, I’ve been fighting the good fight, trying to protect the Ramones from the ignoramus brigade who insisted on seeing them as a ‘cartoon’ band. I’ve argued incessantly with people who refused to see past the band’s superficial image by pointing out specific songs with real human depth and spirit. I thought it was ridiculous for anybody to claim they were fans of the band if they only saw the image and not the individuals. For me, the pudding-bowl haircuts and torn jeans with leather jackets displayed a camaraderie that linked the members of the Ramones in an ‘us-against-the-world’ battle for recognition. They were a musical ‘gang’ with four intensely strong personalities. Usually, I might as well have been talking to a wall. And now, this box set totally destroys my argument.
Like every other band that has become a part of history, the Ramones have their very own box set. To my surprise, though, the box doesn’t avoid the cartoonish image that bedeviled the band. Instead, it celebrates it! Looking at the package, though, I have to admit that my previous perspective was churlish, because this is one of the coolest box set packages I have ever seen. Johnny Ramone compiled three disks of monumental rock and roll – 85 songs – shortly before his death, and they tell quite a story. Accompanying the music is a truly brilliant and beautiful 52-page comic book anthology that paints the band as the pop culture icons they always were, and that I so adamantly denied. The fourth disk is a DVD containing 14 videos, along with some darkly humorous interview segments. Note that the DVD here is NOT the same as the “End of the Century” documentary that was released a few months ago.
All in all, this is a beautiful package, and a fitting legacy for the band that it celebrates. Now, the Ramones have their own comic book, packaged in their very own box set, and all the people I argued with about their image can point to it and say “I told you so”. So I was wrong. So what? The music is what really matters, and this box contains some vital stuff… and I must admit, the comic book is pretty damn cool, too.
CD Grade: A-
Tom Ryan
 
|
More Music Reviews
More Movie Reviews
More Book Reviews
More Concert Reviews
Powered by Millennium Communications Inc.