Their solution was radical in its simplicity: strip everything away. No solos. No elaborate arrangements. No songs longer than two and a half minutes if they could help it. The debut album contains fourteen tracks and runs less than 29 minutes from start to finish, shorter than a single side of many progressive rock albums of the era. The guitars sound like chainsaws. The drums hit like a metronome that has lost its patience. Joey’s voice is nasal, deadpan, and oddly tender. Songs called “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Beat on the Brat,” and “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” arrive and disappear before you have fully registered that they started. The whole thing feels like someone opened a window in a very stuffy room.
Critics were largely baffled when the album came out on April 23, 1976. American audiences ignored it almost entirely. The Ramones never had a gold record. They never cracked the Top 40. By the conventional measures of the music industry, their commercial career was a long, sustained disappointment.
