The 1980 Listening Post - The Ramones - End of the Century

The Ramones - End of the Century

#44

Reviewed by Chris Jackson

February 4 1980

The Ramones

End of the Century

Genre: Formerly punk? Garage rock?

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Chris’s Rating: 2.25 out of 5

Allen’s Highlights:

Do You Remember Rock and Roll High Radio?

Rock and Roll High School

Chris’s Highlights:

“Baby, I Love You”

“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”

I have a confession to make that I am sure will be met with much teeth-gnashing and shocked pearl-clutching by many of my musical friends: I’m not much of a Ramones fan. To my ears, they’re one-trick ponies and if you weren’t overly impressed with that one trick in the first place, well…

But let’s approach this with an open mind: perhaps this attempt by producer Phil “Hair Bear” Spector to push them into more refined territory production-wise and a poppier direction might win me over? No, as it turns out, not so much.

If you removed the phrases “LET’S GO!” and “Whoah-oh-oh!” from every Ramones song, you’d be left with mostly silence. They sprinkle them throughout this release, as well, but it fails to generate excitement. In fact, over half of the record drags and lacks any real energy save for a handful of tracks on the second side. 

The singles from this were “Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?” and “Baby, I Love You”. The first of which seems like the band was being forced to do something they didn’t want to do, which, by many accounts, is an accurate description of the creation of this album. I’m not the biggest fan of what they normally do, but this just doesn’t sound like what they normally do or what they even want to be doing. “Baby, I Love You” is the best track on the album and it’s the only one they didn’t write, which I guess is a bit telling. When covering a Ronettes song, they might have felt the freedom to have a bit more fun with it since they didn’t “own” it like they did all of the others that they wrote. 

The other well-known track from the record is “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” which is also a standout. It’s near the end of the album, but it’s catchy, surfy and has some “oomph” to it. The song is rather derivative and nothing we haven’t heard done better by others, but at least they sound like they’re somewhat enjoying themselves.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0QMXeMF3OAF41q35GJvKiR?si=3rseXIgzTiWWRP1mx4DKAQ