…Ya Know?BMG Rights Management, 2012
Favorite:
"Rock 'n Roll Is The Answer"
Flavors:
Bummed cigaretttes, post-nasal drip
- Rock 'n Roll Is The Answer
- Going Nowhere Fast
- New York City
- Waiting For That Railroad
- I Couldn't Sleep
- What Did I Do To Deserve You?
- Seven Days Of Gloom
- Eyes Of Green
- Party Line
- Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)
- 21st Century Girl
- There's Got To Be More To Life
- Make Me Tremble
- Cabin Fever
- Life's A Gas
***It allows us to remember him the way he would have wanted (I.E. alive).
***At 15 tracks long, it's as good value as you will find in a posthumous solo album this week.
****There is a song where he tells us that "Rock 'n Roll Is The Answer." This is exactly why Joey Ramone remains the David Koresh of punk rock.CONS
***Some of this material dates to the late-90s. So…is it still cool for a man in his forties to be banging on about MTV?
***Yes, but in the late-90s?
***Like, post-Carson Daly?
***Alright, but what about the one where he talks about how "my parents are always lecturing me"? Just because it rhymes with "at the advanced age of 43" doesn't make it right.
***If this were a Ramones album, all of these songs would be 2:05, not the 3:45s they keep creeping up to, extended with more and more chorus like bits of Meccano 'cuz Joey never learned to write intros or complex middle-eights.
***For instance, on "What Did I Do To Deserve You," Joey Ramone sings the words "What did I do to deserve you" so many times, it is perfectly legitimate to beat a small mammal to death with half a housebrick if this helps release the supercharge of annoyance the song engenders.
***If this were a Ramones album, it definitely wouldn't have that maudlin rewrite of "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)." Dee Dee would've made a slightly sour face every time Joey played it in rehearsals and gone out for a cigarette. The second time he did so, the whole thing would've been discreetly dropped, and the space plugged by a song about watching MTV.VERDICT: Joey Ramone was too hairy to die, and this proves it. As an album, it's an opportunistic ram-raid on an artist's bottom-drawer, and bears all the hallmarks of such: too long, pencilled-in with needless overdubs, often just the sound of a man clearing his throat set to chug-a-chug Ramones-beat. But despite all of that, you and I both know we could listen to Joey Ramone list ISO 9001 compliance reqiurements and it would be like diving into a warm womb of wonderful.