The Ramones - Pleasant Dreams
#343
July 20 1981
The Ramones
Pleasant Dreams
Genre: Ramones
Allen’s 2015 rating: 4 out of 5
Allen’s 2021 rating: 3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
The KKK Took M y Baby Away
She’s a Sensation
Come On Now
This one got dropped by a Listening Poster who got avalanched by a work load and, when it came time to assign it I thought…wait a minute. You gave this record 4 stars 5 years ago when you KNOW that listening to Ramones albums is an exercise in diminishing returns. Why did you rate it so high when other outlets put it straight in the middle of the band’s oeuvre? (Christgau not withstanding).
For one thing it starts off in a rather alternative way with a guitar pattern that seems almost alien to Johnny and the band’s style. The nearly syncopated back strokes on “We Want the Airwaves” is dissimilar from, say, “I Wanna Be Sedated” or even “Rock and Roll High School” almost seeming to vault from the sped-up-50s of past records to a more 60s psychedelic garage and then we get to the nearly sublime Power Pop/Garage of “The KKK Took My Baby Away” and I am reminded of the fact that these guys are…not lefty. You know? I mean, politically Johnny was a pretty hardcore Reagan conservative and, while he didn’t write it, it’s the single here. It’s also not lost on me that the song is written by Joey who also wrote an ode to Maria Bartiromo before he died and, dammit, Maria is a pretty hardcore right wing State TV staple, yes? So, the incongruity is…weird and confusing and also punk. Very punk.
The album is almost like a grown up version of a Ramones record, which…is not what the world really needs. You know? I still think End of the Century is the better record.
But it’s chock full of darn good songs. Not enough to have earned that original ranking.
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