OVER-RATED
To qualify for "over-rated," a song had to be somewhat popular, my criteria started at "has Sistatime! ever heard of this song?" and went from there. It doesn't mean I don't LIKE a song, it means it's cultural penetration exceeds it's own worth in and of itself.
Beat on the Brat - the "oooooohs" are great, and the song is great, and personally I love it - but it's iconic, in-10-movies-a-year, everybody-in-the-world-loves-it status GREATLY outweighs it's worth as an actual song. I would say it's only achieved the status it has because of it being in the two-hole behind the mother of all iconic slices, Blitzkreig Bop (gee, even starts with the same letter...) Presented to me today, I'd be like "pretty cool." But nothing more. (and suffers from the weak sound of the first album, which sounds like whispering next to Leave Home or Rocket to Russia.)
She's the One - as I said before, "Ramones 101." Could be in a Ramones Mad Libs book (did I just invent something? ka-ching!!!!) Blah. The most over-rated song on the most over-rated Ramones album. Yet everyone LOVES it, and it was a centerpiece to the Rock 'n Roll High School concert footage. Not even the best song OF IT'S OWN NAME!!!!:
She's the One - Bruce Springsteen/The Ramones.Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment - slightly ham-fisted song that everyone seems to know, but is a junior varsity version of their best "loony bin" song We're a Happy Family, which is FIVE TIMES as melodic and 100x funnier. I would also use this slot to throw in the absurdly stupid, worthless Pinhead. Christ, by the end of the song, singing the chorus, the Ramones sound like you never thought they would: tired.
Bruce. Never been in love with the Ramones slice; everyone else always saw it as the big "Ramonesey" single on Road to Ruin, but I always thought of it as a "How to Write a Ramones Song 101." Blown away on the same side by "It's a Long Way Back" and "Questioningly." The Boss's cut features Bo Diddley stomp and Spector Wall of Sound. Think it has the word vanilla in it, too.
Psycho Therapy - as I said before - why the FUCK was this the "single" from Subterranean Jungle? Played at every fucking show since it's release, in lieu of much better tracks form the same album. Only great part is the final half of the last verse, the phrasing of "I'm a kid in the nuthouse, I'm a kid in the psycho zone..." etc; shoulda picked up on that part and re-written the song. Another fucking compilation standard that isn't in the Top 10 of it's own album.
Chinese Rocks - song: okay. press for it: UNBELIEVABLE. It's a really good song, but has been COMPLETELY wrung dry of any life by the thousands of pages written about it to shock kids cause of the Johnny Thunders/Richard Hell connection. Oooooohhh, drugs! Wow!!!! Please. What a joke. And to think that the song directly before it is Danny Says, an all-time Ramones Top 5, which NEVER gets any fucking cred but is as heart-crushingly lonely beautiful a song ever written, is a crime. (only reason Danny Says isn't on my "under-rated" list is cause everyone I know that TRULY loves the Ramones loves the song.) Danny Says is a "let me hear it while they lower me into the ground" song; Chinese Rocks, most assuredly, is not.
UNDERRATED
(to qualify for "under-rated", I felt I had to pick songs that people had actually heard, but got passed over by either the fans or the Ramones themselves. NOT songs nobody ever heard of, a la Cant Say Anything Nice; also why I didn't include any Too Tough to Die/Subterranean Jungle stuff, but songs that were just as available as others, but for some reason remain in the dark, world-wise.)
Oh Oh I Love Her So - I've never understood why this wasn't the biggest song in the world in 1977; it had it all: amazing song, sing-along chorus, perfect backups, even a fucking mention of Burger King. A fucking PERFECT song. But always overshadowed on Leave Home by Commando, and Pinhead, and fucking Shock Treatment. Come the fuck on. If God was to create a perfect pop song, this would be in the running (even the simple extra chorus at the end, and the last lick (hard days nightish?) add to it.) This song should be WAY bigger than Beat on the Brat, or Chinese Rocks, or what the fuck ever. Perfect song.
All's Quiet on the Eastern Front - the best parts of the Ramones: super smooth, more roll than rock, and fucking back and forth singing. Why the fuck they didn't play this every show for 15 years with Joey and Dee Dee trading lines, I'll never know. Added bonus for, as I said in MY MAGNET post, being put between We Want the Airwaves and The KKK Took My Baby Away, the 2 biggest songs from that era, yet being a better song. Shoulda been a hit.
Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World - this is a song so good you don't mind another song being stuck onto the beginning of it; when that fucking bass curls around the guitar after the beginning you fucking feel like a fucking sleigh going down a goddam hill at 200mph and wouldn't mind if that's how you spent your final moments in this life. Plowing though fucking walls, all for the big build-up at the end. Brilliant. What more can you say? Side note: I believe in my "last will and testament" for my senior year yearbook, I wrote to my high school girlfriend "TODAY YOUR LOVE, TOMORROW THE WORLD." Here we are 20 years later, and me with neither. Of course.
It's a Long Way Back - if you wanna make me cry, play this. Period. In the history of rock 'n roll, I can think of no song that does more with fewer words (other than Telstar, but that has NO words, so.) Ironically, the song is SO Dee Dee, but Joey's fucking voice MAKES the song - no one else has ever been born for the sole purpose of squeezing out every moment of a song like he was for this. Unreal. The most under-rated song on the most over-rated album.
This Ain't Havana - I've never heard anybody else mention this song. But I played it on EVERY single radio show I did when I was in collge; the fucking wall-of-sound smoothness is unrivaled, by another Ramones song and even further. That fucking ultra-smooth shuffle + ba-ba-banana + the breakdown parts (which are the same as the chorus to Chinese Rocks but a helluva lot better); THAT wasn't a fucking hit? Really? This song is so smooth it's on ball bearings; I've never heard one since so smooth...and it was just a throwaway, nobody-will-notice song on End of the Century. Unreal. And the drumming on the outro-chorus, camon. Beyond inspired.
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