Rombes Nicholas: 33 1/3 - Ramones

Thirty-Three and a Third is a series of short books about critically acclaimedand much-loved albums of the past 40 years. Over 50,000 copies have been sold!"Passionate, obsessive, and smart." --Nylon..".an inspired new series of short books about beloved works of vinyl." --DetailsNicholas Rombes is an English professor at theUniversity of Detroit Mercy, where he teaches andwrites about film, music, and pop culture. His writinghas appeared in a range of journals and magazines, including Exquisite Corpse (edited by Andrei Codrescu)and McSweeney's. He is also the editor of theforthcoming book Post-Punk Cinema. DescriptionWhat could be more punk rock than a band that never changed, a band that for decades punched out three-minute powerhouses in the style that made them famous? The Ramones' repetition and attitude inspired a genre, and Ramones set its tone. Nicholas Rombes examines punk history, with the recording of Ramones at its core, in this inspiring and thoroughly researched justification of his obsession with the album. Excerpt: When I sat down to write about the album's opening song, "Blitzkreig Bop," my first line was "This is the best opening song to any rock album." Then I decided that sounded too creepily fanatic and more than a little disingenuous, since I haven't heard every rock album ever made, and I took it out. But then I went downstairs to the turntable and played it and midway through ran back upstairs and put the line back in even before the screensaver clicked in. Here's why: "Blitzkrieg Bop" succeeds not only as a song in its own right, but also as a promise kept. The songs that follow live up to the speed, humor, menace, absurdity, and mystery of that first song, whose opening lines "Hey ho, let's go" offer not so much a warning as an invitation to the listener, an invitation and a threat that the song isn't a fluke or a one-off, but that it sets the stage for an entire album that will be fast and loud.