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Originally Posted by Dead-Air
That's quite an assumptive claim.
We are talking here about the band who went and played a tour in England that inspired members of the Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks, the Damned, and Siouxsie and the Banshees to start their own groups. The same band that the Bad Brains took their name from one of their songs, and Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys both invoke as their major influence. I'm sure there are a few kids out there who fit the description you imply, but there are also plenty of people that know that the Backstreet Boys were Wayne County's band and still think of the Ramones as the best because they fucking started it all.
For me personally, Suicide, Television, and Rocket from the Tombs/Pere Ubu have all had a bigger influence on my life and my music, but that doesn't mean that I don't still think of the Ramones as the archetype for pure unbridled punk rock 'n roll from that era or any since. You can't strip down to the essence of rock 'n roll music further than "Beat On the Brat" or "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue". The three groups to come the closest before were probably the Stooges (a bit too free jazz influenced), the New York Dolls (a bit too glam) and the Dictators (a bit too stand up comedy), but due to their other elements none of them achieved what the Ramones did - what Tom Verlaine summed up as creating the first pure white urban rock 'n roll without copping any old blues riffs.
I'd question how anyone could have "fully explored that era of music" as you say and not realized that it was the Ramones who Hilly Krystal first booked at CBGBs forever changing rock music as we understand it and creating the NYC scene that Sonic Youth would later rise to the top of in their day (though they of course incorporated the downtown avant garde and No Wave scenes in their rise as well.)
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My application was towards the legions of kids/peolpe that talk a lot of talk about music and just say The Ramones were the best at what was going on then, when they don't know what really went on then. Honestly man, I mean what were the ramones listening to? You mean to tell me that The MC5 weren't a white urban rock n roll band?
I wasn't disputing whether Hilly Krystal had booked them and I wasn't trying to get into Wayne/Jayne County either.
My point is that yes they were influential to a lot if not most of the 80's american hardcore movement, but honestly The Heartbreakers were in England before the Ramones were and they receive little credit for influences, eventhough The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Billy Idol etc...saw them and immediately started to be mused.
The fact is that Danny Fields finally got what he wanted, a band that he could mold and turn into what he wanted and I think thats what he lost with The Stooges. I mean he wanted to have all the guys have the same last name and all, its good marketing, catchy and people could readily recognize it.
Im really swaying of course with this post and forgive me for it, all I was trying to say is that a lot of people NOWADAYS are very quick to drop the Ramones as the best, and maybe the really feel that and I am 100% cool with it, what I'm not cool with is kids or people just saying something is the best, without giving the other options a shot. If you've done that (like most here have and I wasn't applying my previous post towards you guys) and you truly believe The Ramones were it, than hell man, the were it and I love you for that.