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Stereo 8, commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track, is a magnetic tape sound recording technology. It was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s, but was relatively unknown in many European countries. Stereo 8 was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation, along with Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA Victor Records (RCA). It was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge created by Earl "Madman" Muntz. A later quadraphonic version of the format was announced by RCA in April 1970 and first known as Quad-8, then later changed to just Q8.

History[link]

The original format for magnetic tape sound reproduction was the reel-to-reel tape recorder, first available in the U.S. in the late 1940s but too expensive and bulky to be practical for amateur home use until well into the 1950s. Loading a reel of tape onto the machine and threading it through the various guides and rollers proved daunting to some casual users—certainly, it was more difficult than putting a vinyl record on a record player and flicking a switch—and because in early years each tape had to be dubbed from the master tape in real-time to maintain good sound quality, prerecorded tapes were more expensive to manufacture, and costlier to buy, than vinyl records.

To eliminate the nuisance of tape-threading, various manufacturers introduced cartridges that held the tape inside a metal or plastic housing to eliminate handling. Most were intended only for low-fidelity voice recording in proprietary dictation machines. The first tape cartridge designed for general consumer use, including music reproduction, was the Sound Tape or Magazine Loading Cartridge (RCA tape cartridge), introduced in 1958 by RCA. Prerecorded stereophonic music cartridges were available, and blank cartridges could be used to make recordings at home, but the format failed to gain popularity.

The Compact Cassette, in appearance and function essentially a miniaturized version of the RCA cartridge, was introduced by the Dutch firm Philips in Europe in 1963, and in the U.S. in late 1964, but it took several years to achieve significant market penetration. Initially, the audio quality was too low to recommend it as a promising medium for music-listening. It seemed to be just another convenient new format for dictation systems and small battery-powered portable units designed for recording speech but not music. By the late 1960s, however, audio quality had been improved enough to make music reproduction acceptable to listeners willing to tolerate a limited frequency range and substantial background hiss in exchange for convenience and economy, and by 1968 AC-powered stereo cassette decks were available. Sony introduced a battery-powered portable stereo cassette recorder in 1970. After the introduction of Dolby B noise reduction for cassettes in the early 1970s, and the advent of new tape coatings that greatly improved the high-frequency response, the Compact Cassette finally became a respectable and increasingly popular medium for listening to music, both on the road and at home.

During the Compact Cassette's unmusical childhood, other formats were introduced in attempts to profit from the widely recognized need for a practical, convenient, affordable means of listening to high-fidelity recorded music while in a moving car. Stereo 8 was released in 1965.

Development of tape cartridges[link]

The inside of an 8-track cartridge. The black rubber pinch roller is at upper right.

The endless loop tape cartridge was first designed in 1952 by Bernard Cousino around a single reel carrying a continuous loop of standard 1/4-inch, plastic, oxide-coated recording tape running at 3.75 in.(9.5 cm) per second. Program starts and stops were signaled by a one-inch-long metal foil that activates the track-change sensor. (Bill Lear had tried to create an endless-loop wire recorder in the 1940s, but gave up in 1946, even though endless-loop 8 mm film cartridges were already in use for him to copy from. He would be inspired by Earl Muntz's four-track design in the early 1960s.)

Inventor George Eash, also from Toledo, invented a cartridge design in 1954, called the Fidelipac. The Eash cartridge was later licensed by manufacturers, notably the Collins Radio Corporation, which first introduced a cartridge system for broadcasting at the National Association of Broadcasters 1959 annual show. Fidelipac cartridges (nicknamed "carts" by DJs and radio engineers) were used by many radio stations for commercials, jingles, and other short items right up until the late 1990s when digital media took over. Eash later formed Fidelipac Corporation to manufacture and market tapes and recorders, as did several others, including Audio-Pak (Audio Devices Corp.).

There were several attempts to sell music systems for cars, beginning with the Chrysler Highway Hi-Fi of the late 1950s (which used discs). Entrepreneur Earl "Madman" Muntz of Los Angeles, California, however, saw a potential in these "broadcast carts" for an automobile music system. In 1962 he introduced his Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge stereo system (two programs, each consisting of two tracks) and tapes, mostly in California and Florida. He licensed popular music albums from the major record companies and duplicated them on these four-track cartridges, or "CARtridges", as they were first advertised.

Introduction of Stereo 8[link]

The Lear Jet Stereo 8 track cartridge was designed by Richard Kraus while working under Bill Lear and for his Lear Jet Corporation in 1963. The major change was to incorporate a neoprene rubber and nylon pinch roller into the cartridge itself, rather than to make the pinch roller a part of the tape player, reducing mechanical complexity. Lear also eliminated some of the internal parts of the Eash cartridge, such as the tape-tensioning mechanism and an interlock that prevented tape spillage. In the Cousino, Eash, Muntz, and Lear cartridges, tape was pulled from the center of the reel, passed across the opening at one end of the cartridge and wound back onto the outside of the same reel. The spool itself was freewheeling and the tape was driven only by tension from the capstan and pinch roller.

With a reel turning at a constant rate, the tape around the hub has a lower linear velocity than the tape at the outside of the reel, so the tape layers must slip past each other as they approach the center. The tape was coated with a slippery backing material, usually graphite and patented by Bernard Cousino, to ease the continuous slip between the tape layers. While the design allowed simple, cheap, and mobile players, unlike a two-reel system, it did not permit rewinding of the tape. Some players offered fast-forward by speeding up the motor while cutting off the audio; but rewinding was never offered, because it was technically impossible.

Muntz's cartridge had used two pairs of stereo tracks in the same configuration as then-current "quarter track" reel-to-reel tapes. This format was intended to parallel his source material, which was usually a single LP (long playing) record with two sides. Program switching was achieved by physically moving the head up and down mechanically by a lever. The Stereo 8 version doubled the amount of programming on the tape by providing eight total tracks, usually comprising four programs of two tracks each. Lear touted this as a great improvement, because much more music could be held inside a standard cartridge housing, but in practice this resulted in a slight loss of sound quality and an increase in background noise from the narrower tape tracks. Unlike the Stereo-Pak, the Stereo 8 could switch between tracks automatically, with the use of a small length of conductive foil at the splice joint on the tape, which would cause the player to change tracks as it passed the head assembly.

The Stereo 8 also introduced the problem of dividing up the programming intended for a two-sided LP record into four programs. Often this resulted in songs being split into two parts (the split was often made during an instrumental break or a repeated chorus), song orders being reshuffled, shorter songs being repeated, and songs separated by long passages of silence. Some eight-tracks included extra musical content to fill in time such as a piano solo on Lou Reed's Berlin and a guitar solo in Pink Floyd's Animals.

In rare instances, an eight-track was able to be arranged exactly like the record album version, without any song breaks. Examples of this are Quadrophenia by The Who, and some versions of Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues. Other examples of this rarity are Freeways by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Live Bullet by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Caught Live + 5 by The Moody Blues, The Concert in Central Park by Simon & Garfunkel, and Octave by The Moody Blues.

In 1964, Lear's aircraft company constructed 100 demonstration Stereo 8 players for distribution to executives at RCA and the auto companies.

Commercial success[link]

The popularity of both four-track and eight-track cartridges grew from the booming automobile industry.^[1] In September 1965, Ford Motor Company introduced factory-installed and dealer-installed eight-track tape players as an option on three of its 1966 models (Mustang, Thunderbird and Lincoln), and RCA Victor introduced 175 Stereo-8 Cartridges from its RCA Victor & RCA Camden artist's catalogs.^[2] By the 1967 model year, all of Ford's vehicles offered this tape player upgrade option. Thanks to Ford's backing, the eight-track format quickly won out over the four-track format, with Muntz abandoning it completely by late 1970.

Despite its problems, the format gained steady popularity because of its convenience and portability. Home players were introduced in 1966 that allowed consumers to share tapes between their homes and portable systems. "Boombox" type players were also popular. With the availability of cartridge systems for the home, consumers started thinking of eight-tracks as a viable alternative to vinyl records, not only as a convenience for the car. Within a year, prerecorded releases on eight-track began to arrive within a month of the vinyl release. Eight-track recorders had gained popularity by the early 1970s.

Quadraphonic eight-track cartridges (announced by RCA in April 1970) were also produced, with the major auto manufacturers being particularly eager to promote in-car quadraphonic players as a pricey option. The format enjoyed a moderate amount of success for a time but faded in the mid-1970s. These cartridges are prized by collectors since they provide four channels of discrete sound, unlike matrixed formats such as SQ. Most quadraphonic albums were specially mixed for the quad format.

Columbia/CBS Records used the SQ matrix system for their quadraphonic vinyl records. But their quadraphonic 8-reel tapes were in discrete four channel stereo.

Decline and demise[link]

There are numerous reasons for the format's decline.

Some of the inherent deficiencies of the format were:

1. High wow and flutter due to the constantly changing load presented by the sliding tape pack
2. Tendency to jam as the tape got dirty, the lubricant wore away, and the tape was exposed to heat
3. Flattening of the pinch roller, over time, when a cartridge was left plugged in, causing increased wow and flutter
4. Inability to attain and maintain head alignment due to the movable head design.

As time went on, these issues were compounded as later cartridges started using cheaper, lower quality materials, such as plastic pinch rollers. Another contributing factor was an effort by record companies to reduce the number of formats offered. In the late 1970s, when sales of eight-tracks slipped, they were quick to abandon the format.

While the cassette offered features that the eight-track lacked, such as smaller size and rewinding capability, it also had disadvantages:

1. Its tape speed was half that of Stereo 8, producing theoretically lower sound quality
2. It required greater mechanical complexity of the player.

However, constant development of the cassette turned it into a widespread high-fidelity medium and also lowered the cost and complexity. That, combined with the inherent deficiencies of the Stereo 8 format, contributed to its decline.

The professional broadcast cart format survived for more than another decade at most radio stations. It was used to play and switch jingles, advertisements, station identifications, and music content until it was replaced by various computer-based methods in the 1990s. This format survived longer because it was used for relatively short sound loops, where starting from the beginning was more important than other criteria. The endless loop tape concept continues to be used in modern movie projectors, although in that application the spool is actively rotated and not drawn by tension on the film. That too, however, is being supplanted by digital cinema technologies.

Eight-track players became less common in homes and vehicles in the late 1970s. By the time the compact disc arrived in 1982–1983, the eight-track cartridges had greatly diminished in popularity. In some Latin American countries as well as European, the format was abandoned in the mid-70s in favor of the cassette.

It was a popular and highly portable music format, suitable for use in the home, recreation, and vehicles. It reached a wide market and perpetuated the recordings of a majority of music genres. The eight-track format maintains a cult following with avid collectors even after its demise on the open market.

Last cartridges[link]

In the U.S., eight-track cartridges were phased out of retail stores by late 1982. Some titles were still available as eight-track tapes through Columbia House and RCA (BMG) Music Service Record Clubs until late 1988. Many of these late-period releases are highly collectible because of the low numbers that were produced and the few customers who ever purchased them. Among the most rare is Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood. Another is Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Live/1975-85, which was one of the very few boxed sets to be released on vinyl, cassette, compact disc, and eight-track tape.

There is a debate among collectors about the last commercial eight-track released by a major label, but many agree it was Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits in November 1988.^[3] The last eight-track tapes by major recording companies were from record and tape clubs in 1988 like RCA (BMG Music) and Columbia House (CRC). All of the known final pre-recorded 8-tracks released commercially are documented at the "Reel To Reel / 8 Track Index" Website with complete list and scanned photos of all products. Demographics had country and western 8-tracks selling possibly the strongest at that time. Readers Digest also had exclusive releases at least as late as 1989 aimed at fans of older classic recording and easy listening and country. Rock and pop 8-tracks from the late 1980s are quite rare and in high demand and can sell on eBay as high as $200.00 each depending on the popularity of the music group.

There are reports of bootleg eight-track tapes being made in Mexico as late as 1995.^[4] Some independent artists still release eight-track tapes.^[5] Also, bands sometimes release eight-tracks as special releases; for example, The Melvins released a limited-time, live eight-track album^[6] and Cheap Trick issued a limited edition version of their album The Latest on the format on June 23, 2009.^[7] In the book Journals, Kurt Cobain wrote about wanting to release Nirvana's last studio album, In Utero, as an 8-track tape, but this never happened. Apart from a selected group of highly collectible artists, the record club issues, and the quadraphonic releases, many eight-track tapes seem to have limited value to most collectors, especially if the tapes have been misused or appear to be worn.

Reliability and usability[link]

The cartridges have an audible pause due to the presence of a length of metallic foil, which a sensor detects and signals the end of the tape and acts as a splice for the loop. The foil passes across a pair of electrical contacts which are in the tape path. Contact of the foil closes an electrical circuit that engages a solenoid which mechanically shifts the tape head to the level of the next track.

Most players produced a mechanical click when switching programs, although early Lear players switched silently. Because of the expense of producing tape heads capable of reading eight tracks, most eight-track players have heads that read just two tracks. Switching from program to program is accomplished by moving the head itself. Since the alignment of the head to the tape is crucial to any tape system, and because eight-track systems were generally designed to be cheap, this configuration further degraded the sound of the eight-track tape.

The Stereo 8 system was fairly simple, mechanically, but presented difficulties in two primary areas:

1) Capstan wear and buildup. As tape residue, dirt and lubricant built up on the capstan, the tape speed would increase and, since the buildup was uneven, the tape speed would become correspondingly uneven. Similarly, some units were subject to the capstan wear, causing a decrease in tape speed.

2) Head alignment. This was an issue for two reasons: a) Azimuth misalignment results in reduced high frequencies, and b) Head height misalignment allows sounds from adjacent tracks to bleed over, an effect sometimes known as "double-tracking". This format, unlike other tape formats, features a movable head with four positions. Among audio service technicians, there used to be a joke that "the eight-track is the only audio device which knocks itself out of alignment four times during each album."

Another issue with azimuth misalignment is a loss of stereophonic-image accuracy. This is due to the resultant time delay between the left and right channels resulting in a degradation of phase correlation. This effect is enhanced in an 8-track system, as compared to either reel-to-reel or cassette, due to the larger physical distance, on the tape, between the left and right channel tracks. This effect could often be cured (or induced) by insertion of a match book in the player opening alongside the cartridge, shifting the alignment slightly.

Stereo 8 tapes and players developed a reputation for unreliability, mostly because of the phenomenon of having the player "eat" the tape as well as occasional failures of splicing tape. The automobile environment, with its temperature extremes, vibration, dust and so on, contributed to many failures.

The "melted" rubber pinch rollers that can be found in many early 8-Track cartridges were the result of the rubber not being fully cured. After discovering this cause, later cartridges used only fully cured (hard) rubber pinch rollers that did not deteriorate, as much, over time.

Tape tension was another cause of unreliability. Prerecorded eight-track tapes tended to hold only a single album, about 46 minutes of content, or 11.5 minutes per track. Consumers wanted the ability to record more music on a single cartridge, so manufacturers came out with units of greater capacity. With the corresponding increase in tape length, there was a greater velocity differential between the tape being drawn from the center of the reel and the tape being fed back to the outer edge of the reel as it passed the capstan/pinch-roller assembly (loop length). Over time, this would cause the tape pack to tighten, making it more difficult to feed, and to maintain a constant playback speed.

When the sliding tape pack would pull itself tight, for whatever reason, a jammed 8-track cartridge was the result. A quick solution was to hold the cartridge in one hand, facing down, while pulling out a section of, about 4-6' in length from the outer winding side. A quick tug on the tape would cause it to immediately wind in and the result was a loosened up tape pack that would play correctly.

Failing that, another solution was to open the cartridge, cut the tape at the splice, and relieve the excess tension by manually unwinding one or two sections from the outer edge of tape (loop length) while keeping the reel stationary, then re-splicing the tape, with a fresh piece of foil (since the old foil was usually caked with built-up graphite reducing conductivity and making it difficult to change tracks). Another, simpler fix was to shake the cassette in the plane of the tape reel with a rotary motion, sometimes this would cause the windings inside to rotate and loosen.

A decrease in the quality of the parts used in the eight-track cartridge, that is, plastic pinch rollers, lubricant quality and quantity, etc., was another blow to the faltering format. As problems further reduced the reliability, the sound quality, and the smoothness of the tape speed. As a result, the eight-track eventually developed a reputation for being finicky and unreliable.

See also[link]

• Audio format
• Audio storage
• Birotron

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 8-track tape

• Reel To Reel and 8-Track Index - the last releases made during the 1980s with pictures
• "A Survey of Recordable Magnetic Media" by Andrew D. Crews, December, 2003, University of Texas, accessed August 8, 2006
• So Wrong They're Right - A 1995 documentary about 8-track enthusiasts
• 8-Track Heaven Modern website discussing 8-Tracks
• 8-Track Moments Listen to the sound of the 8-Track click.
• A History of Audio Recording
• http://www.quarterinchers.com/howtorepair8tracktapes.php 8 track repair
• Used 8-track player comparison test, Home Theater magazine, February 1997

8-track may refer to:

• 8-track tape, known as the 8-track cartridge, an analog music recording format popular from the late 1960s to the early 1980s
• 8-track (multitrack), reel-to-reel tape used in professional recording studios
• 8tracks, an online site for user-generated mixtapes

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Ramones
Left to right: Johnny, Dee Dee, and Joey Ramone in 1980
Background information
Origin	Forest Hills, Queens, New York, United States
Genres	Punk rock
Years active	1974–1996
Labels	Sire, Philips, Beggars Banquet, Radioactive, Chrysalis
Associated acts	Tangerine Puppets, Sniper, Bad Chopper, Los Gusanos, Dust, The Voidoids, Blondie, Uncle Monk, Misfits, Osaka Popstar
Past members
Dee Dee Ramone Johnny Ramone Joey Ramone Tommy Ramone Marky Ramone Richie Ramone Elvis Ramone (Clem Burke) C. J. Ramone

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group.^[1][2] Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", though none of them were related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years.^[2] In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell concert and disbanded.^[3] Little more than eight years after the breakup, the band's three founding members—lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone—had died.^[4][5][6]

Their only record with enough U.S. sales to be certified gold was the compilation album Ramones Mania.^[7] However, recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now cited in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as the Rolling Stone list of the 50 Greatest Artists of All Time^[8] and VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.^[9] In 2002, the Ramones were ranked the second-greatest band of all time by Spin magazine, trailing only The Beatles.^[10] On March 18, 2002, the Ramones—including the three founders and drummers Tommy and Marky Ramone—were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[2][11] In 2011, the group was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[12][13]

History[link]

Formation: 1974–75[link]

Forest Hills High School, attended by the four original members of the Ramones

The original members of the band met in and around the middle-class neighborhood of Forest Hills in the New York City borough of Queens. John Cummings and Thomas Erdelyi had both been in a high-school garage band from 1966 to 1967 known as the Tangerine Puppets.^[14] They became friends with Douglas Colvin, who had recently moved to the area from Germany,^[15] and Jeffry Hyman, who was the initial lead singer of the glam rock band Sniper, founded in 1972.^[16][17]

The Ramones began taking shape in early 1974, when Cummings and Colvin invited Hyman to join them in a band. The initial lineup featured Colvin on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Cummings on lead guitar, and Hyman on drums. Colvin, who soon switched from rhythm guitar to bass, was the first to adopt the name "Ramone", calling himself Dee Dee Ramone. He was inspired by Paul McCartney's use of the pseudonym Paul Ramon during his Silver Beatles days.^[18][19] Dee Dee convinced the other members to take on the name and came up with the idea of calling the band the Ramones.^[20] Hyman and Cummings became Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone, respectively.^[20]

A friend of the band, Monte A. Melnick (later their tour manager), helped to arrange rehearsal time for them at Manhattan's Performance Studios, where he worked. Johnny's former bandmate Erdelyi was set to become their manager. Soon after the band was formed, Dee Dee realized that he could not sing and play his bass guitar simultaneously; with Erdelyi's encouragement, Joey became the band's new lead singer.^[18] Dee Dee would continue, however, to count off each song's tempo with his signature rapid-fire shout of "1-2-3-4!" Joey soon similarly realized that he could not sing and play drums simultaneously and left the position of drummer. While auditioning prospective replacements, Erdelyi would often take to the drums and demonstrate how to play the songs. It became apparent that he was able to perform the group's music better than anyone else, and he joined the band as Tommy Ramone.^[21]

The Ramones played before an audience for the first time on March 30, 1974, at Performance Studios.^[2] The songs they played were very fast and very short; most clocked in at under two minutes. Around this time, a new music scene was emerging in New York centered around two clubs in downtown Manhattan—Max's Kansas City and, more famously, CBGB (usually referred to as CBGB's). The Ramones made their CBGB debut on August 16. Legs McNeil, who cofounded Punk magazine the following year, later described the impact of that performance: "They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song...and it was just this wall of noise.... They looked so striking. These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new."^[22]

The band swiftly became regulars at the club, playing there seventy-four times by the end of the year. After garnering considerable attention for their performances—which averaged about seventeen minutes from beginning to end—the group was signed to a recording contract in late 1975 by Seymour Stein of Sire Records. Stein's wife, Linda Stein, had seen the band play at CBGB; she would later co-manage them along with Danny Fields.^[23] By this time, the Ramones were recognized as leaders of the new scene that was increasingly being referred to as "punk".^[24][25] The group's unusual frontman had a lot to do with their impact. As Dee Dee explained, "All the other singers [in New York] were copying David Johansen [of The New York Dolls], who was copying Mick Jagger.... But Joey was unique, totally unique."^[26]

Spearheading punk: 1976–77[link]

	"Blitzkrieg Bop" noicon The title of the Ramones' debut single, writes critic Steve Huey, is a "nice encapsulation of the group's aesthetic: simple, bouncy, pre-British Invasion rock & roll played at top volume and twice the speed. Blaring the same three chords for most of its duration, the song was rock at its most basic".[27]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Ramones recorded their debut album, Ramones, in February 1976. Of the fourteen songs on the album, the longest, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement", barely surpassed two-and-a-half minutes. While the songwriting credits were shared by the entire band, Dee Dee was the primary writer. Ramones was produced by Sire's Craig Leon, with Tommy as associate producer, on an extremely low budget of about $6,400 and released in April.^[30] The now iconic front cover photograph of the band was taken by Roberta Bayley, a photographer for Punk magazine.^[31] Punk, which was largely responsible for codifying the term for the scene emerging around CBGB, ran a cover story on the Ramones in its third issue, the same month as the record's release.^[32][28]

The Ramones' debut LP was greeted by rock critics with glowing reviews. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau wrote, "I love this record—love it—even though I know these boys flirt with images of brutality (Nazi especially).... For me, it blows everything else off the radio".^[33] In Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson described it as "constructed almost entirely of rhythm tracks of an exhilarating intensity rock & roll has not experienced since its earliest days." Characterizing the band as "authentic American primitives whose work has to be heard to be understood", he declared, "It is time popular music followed the other arts in honoring its primitives."^[34] Newsday's Wayne Robbins simply anointed the Ramones as "the best young rock 'n' roll band in the known universe."^[35]

However, despite Sire's high hopes for it,^[36] Ramones was not a commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the Billboard album chart. The two singles issued from the album, "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", failed to chart at all. At the band's first major performance outside of New York, a June date in Youngstown, Ohio, approximately ten people showed up.^[37] It wasn't until they made a brief tour of England that they began to see the fruits of their labor; a performance at The Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976 (second-billed to the Flamin' Groovies), organized by Linda Stein, was a resounding success.^[38] Their Roundhouse appearance and a club date the following night—where the band met members of the Sex Pistols and The Clash—helped galvanize the burgeoning UK punk rock scene.^[4] The Flamin' Groovies/Ramones double bill was successfully reprised at The Roxy in Los Angeles the following month, fueling the punk scene there as well. The Ramones were becoming an increasingly popular live act—a Toronto performance in September energized yet another growing punk scene.^[39]

Their next two albums, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, were released in 1977. Both were coproduced by Tommy and Tony Bongiovi, the second cousin of Jon Bon Jovi.^[40] Leave Home met with even less chart success than Ramones, though it did include "Pinhead", which became one of the band's signature songs with its chanted refrain of "Gabba gabba hey!" Rocket to Russia was the band's highest-charting album to date, reaching number 49 on the Billboard 200.^[41] In Rolling Stone, critic Dave Marsh called it "the best American rock & roll of the year".^[42] The album also featured the first Ramones single to enter the Billboard charts (albeit only as high as number 81): "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker". The follow-up single, "Rockaway Beach", reached number 66—the highest any Ramones single would ever reach in America. On December 31, 1977, the Ramones recorded It's Alive, a live concert double album, at the Rainbow Theatre, London, which was released in April 1979 (the title is a reference to the 1974 horror film of the same name).^[43]

Recordings turn more pop: 1978–83[link]

Tommy, tired of touring, left the band in early 1978. He continued as the Ramones' record producer under his birth name of Erdelyi. His position as drummer was filled by Marc Bell, who had been a member of the early 1970s hard rock band Dust, Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys,^[44] and the pioneering punk group Richard Hell & The Voidoids.^[45] Bell became Marky Ramone. Later that year, the band released their fourth studio album, and first with Marky, Road to Ruin. The album, co-produced by Tommy with Ed Stasium, included some new sounds such as acoustic guitar, several ballads, and the band's first two recorded songs longer than three minutes. It failed to reach the Billboard Top 100. However, "I Wanna Be Sedated", which appeared both on the album and as a single, would become one of the band's best-known songs.^[46] The artwork on the album's cover was done by Punk magazine cofounder John Holmstrom.^[47]

After the band's movie debut in Roger Corman's Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979), renowned producer Phil Spector became interested in the Ramones and produced their 1980 album End of the Century. During the recording sessions in Los Angeles, Spector held Dee Dee at gunpoint, forcing him to repeatedly play a riff.^[48] Though it was to be the highest-charting album in the band's history—reaching number 44 in the United States and number 14 in Great Britain—Johnny made clear that he favored the band's more aggressive punk material: "End of the Century was just watered-down Ramones. It's not the real Ramones."^[49] This stance was also conveyed by the title and track selection of the compilation album Johnny later oversaw, Loud, Fast Ramones: Their Toughest Hits. Despite these reservations, Johnny did concede that some of Spector's work with the band had merit, saying "It really worked when he got to a slower song like 'Danny Says'—the production really worked tremendously. 'Rock 'N' Roll Radio' is really good. For the harder stuff, it didn't work as well."^[50] The syrupy, string-laden Ronettes cover "Baby, I Love You" released as a single, became the band's biggest hit in Great Britain, reaching number 8 on the charts.^[51]

Joey and Dee Dee Ramone in concert, 1983

Pleasant Dreams, the band's sixth album, was released in 1981. It continued the trend established by End of the Century, taking the band further from the raw punk sound of its early records. As described by Trouser Press, the album, produced by Graham Gouldman of UK pop act 10cc, moved the Ramones "away from their pioneering minimalism into heavy metal territory".^[52] Johnny would contend in retrospect that this direction was a record company decision, a continued futile attempt to get airplay on American radio.^[1][50] While Pleasant Dreams reached number 58 on the U.S. chart, its two singles failed to register at all.^[53]

Subterranean Jungle, produced by Ritchie Cordell and Glen Kolotkin, was released in 1983.^[54] According to Trouser Press, it brought the band "back to where they once belonged: junky '60s pop adjusted for current tastes", which among other things meant "easing off the breakneck rhythm that was once Ramones dogma."^[52] Billy Rogers, who had performed with Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, played drums on the album's second single, a cover of The Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today".^[55] Subterranean Jungle peaked at number 83 in the United States—it would be the last album by the band to crack the Billboard Top 100.^[56][57]

Shuffling members: 1983–89[link]

After the release of Subterranean Jungle, Marky was fired from the band due to his alcoholism.^[58] He was replaced by Richard Reinhardt, who adopted the name Richie Ramone. The first album the Ramones recorded with Richie was Too Tough to Die in 1984, with Tommy Erdelyi and Ed Stasium returning as producers. The album marked a shift to something like the band's original sound. In the description of Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the "rhythms are back up to jackhammer speed and the songs are down to short, terse statements."^[59]

	"Bonzo Goes To Bitburg" noicon Over a "power-pop beat and melodic hooks galore", writes David Corn, Joey "snarls" the beginning of the refrain—"Bonzo goes to Bitburg/then goes out for a cup of tea/As I watched it on TV/somehow it really bothered me".[60] In contrast, Salon.com arts editor Bill Wyman writes of "Joey's pained, pleading voice".[61]
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The band's main release of 1985 was the British single "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg"; though it was available in the United States only as an import, it was played widely on American college radio.^[62] The song was written, primarily by Joey, in protest of Ronald Reagan's visit to a German military cemetery where SS members were buried.^[63] Retitled "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)", the song appeared on the band's ninth studio album, Animal Boy (1986). Produced by Jean Beauvoir, formerly a member of the Plasmatics, the album was characterized by a Rolling Stone reviewer as "nonstop primal fuzz pop".^[64] Making it his pick for "album of the week", New York Times critic Jon Pareles wrote that the Ramones "speak up for outcasts and disturbed individuals".^[65]

The following year the band recorded their last album with Richie, Halfway to Sanity, produced by Daniel Rey. Richie left in August 1987, upset that after being in the band for four years, the other members would still not give him a share of the money they made selling T-shirts.^[66] Richie was replaced by Clem Burke from Blondie, which was disbanded at the time. According to Johnny, the performances with Burke—who adopted the name Elvis Ramone—were a disaster. He was fired after two performances because his drumming could not keep up with the rest of the band.^[66] Marky, now clean and sober, returned.^[20]

Dee Dee left the band after the recording of their eleventh studio album, 1989's Brain Drain, co-produced by Beauvoir, Rey, and Bill Laswell.^[67] He was replaced by Christopher Joseph Ward (C.J. Ramone), who performed with the band until they disbanded. Dee Dee initially pursued a brief career as a rapper under the name Dee Dee King. He quickly returned to punk rock and formed several bands, in much the same vein as the Ramones, for whom he also continued to write songs.^[67]

Final years: 1990–96[link]

After more than a decade and a half at Sire Records, the Ramones moved to a new label, Radioactive Records. Their first album for the label was 1992's Mondo Bizarro, which reunited them with producer Ed Stasium.^[68] Acid Eaters, consisting entirely of cover songs, came out the following year.^[69] In 1993 the Ramones were featured in the animated television series The Simpsons, providing music and voices for animated versions of themselves in the episode "Rosebud".^[70]

In 1995, the Ramones released ¡Adios Amigos!, their fourteenth studio album, and announced that they planned to disband if it was not successful.^[71][72] Its sales were unremarkable, garnering it just two weeks on the lower end of the Billboard chart.^[73] The band spent late 1995 on what was promoted as a farewell tour. However, they accepted an offer to appear in the sixth Lollapalooza festival, which toured around the United States during the following summer.^[74] After the Lollapalooza tour's conclusion, the Ramones played their final show on August 6, 1996, at the Palace in Hollywood. A recording of the concert was later released on video and CD as We're Outta Here! In addition to a reappearance by Dee Dee, the show featured several guests including Motörhead's Lemmy, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen.^[3]

Aftermath and deaths[link]

Marky Ramone at the 2009 premiere of the documentary Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB

On July 20, 1999, Dee Dee, Johnny, Joey, Tommy, Marky, and C.J. appeared together at the Virgin Megastore in New York City for an autograph signing. This was the last occasion on which the original four members of the group appeared together. Joey, who had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995, died of the illness on April 15, 2001, in New York.^[4][75]

In 2002, the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which specifically named Dee Dee, Johnny, Joey, Tommy, and Marky. At the ceremony, the surviving inductees spoke on behalf of the band. Tommy spoke first, saying how honored the band felt, but how much it would have meant for Joey. Johnny thanked the band's fans and blessed George W. Bush and his presidency, Dee Dee humorously congratulated and thanked himself, while Marky thanked Tommy for influencing his drum style. Green Day played "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" as a tribute, demonstrating the Ramones' continuing influence on later rock musicians. The ceremony was one of Dee Dee's last public appearances: on June 5, 2002, two months later, he was found at his Hollywood home, dead from a heroin overdose.^[5]

On November 30, 2003, New York City unveiled a sign designating East 2nd Street at the corner of Bowery as Joey Ramone Place. The singer lived on East 2nd for a time, and the sign is near the former Bowery site of CBGB.^[76] The documentary film End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones came out in 2004. Johnny, who had been privately battling prostate cancer, died on September 15, 2004, in Los Angeles, shortly after the film's release.^[6] On the same day as Johnny's death, the world's first Ramones Museum opened its doors to the public. Located in Berlin, Germany, the museum features more than 300 items of memorabilia, including a pair of stage-worn jeans from Johnny, a stage-worn glove from Joey, Marky's sneakers, and C.J.'s stage-worn bass strap.^[77]

The Ramones were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.^[78] That October saw the release of a DVD set containing concert footage of the band: It's Alive 1974-1996 includes 118 songs from 33 performances over the span of the group's career.^[79] In February 2011, the group was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Drummers Tommy, Marky, and Richie attended the ceremony.^[12][13] Marky declared, "This is amazing. I never expected this. I'm sure Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee would never have expected this."^[12] Richie noted that it was the first time ever that all three drummers were under the same roof, and mused that he couldn't "help thinking that [Joey] is watching us right now with a little smile on his face behind his rose-colored glasses."^[13]

Conflicts between members[link]

Tensions between Joey and Johnny colored much of the Ramones' career. The pair were politically antagonistic, Joey being a liberal and Johnny a conservative. Their personalities also clashed: Johnny, who spent two years in military school, lived by a code of self-discipline,^[80] while Joey struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder.^[81] Johnny, who was fascinated by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler, would sometimes torment Joey (who was Jewish) with anti-Semitic remarks.^[82] In the early 1980s, Johnny "stole" Joey's girlfriend Linda, whom he later married. As a consequence, despite performing together for years afterward, Joey and Johnny stopped speaking to each other.^[6] Johnny did not call Joey before the latter's death in 2001, but said in the documentary End of the Century that he was depressed for "the whole week" after the singer died.^[66]

Aside from this central conflict, Dee Dee's bipolar disorder and repeated relapses into drug addiction also caused significant strains.^[83] Tommy left the band partly in reaction to being "physically threatened by Johnny, treated with contempt by Dee Dee, and all but ignored by Joey".^[82] As new members joined, payment methods and image representation became matters of serious dispute.^[84] In 1997, Marky and Joey got into a fight about their respective drinking habits on the Howard Stern radio show.^[85]

Style[link]

Musical style[link]

	"Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" noicon Cultural critic Anders Johannsson uses this 1977 single as an example of how most Ramones songs "work in the same way: the same hammering on the drums, the same distorted guitars, the same howling of an extremely short text, in a simple tune with an even simpler chorus".[86]
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The Ramones' loud, fast, straightforward musical style was influenced by pop music that the band members grew up listening to in the 1950s and 1960s, including classic rock groups such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Rolling Stones; bubblegum acts like the 1910 Fruitgum Company and Ohio Express; and girl groups such as The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las. They also drew on the harder rock sound of The Stooges and the New York Dolls, both now known as seminal protopunk bands.^[87] The Ramones' style was in part a reaction against the heavily produced, often bombastic music that dominated the pop charts in the 1970s. "We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard," Joey once explained. "In 1974 everything was tenth-generation Led Zeppelin, tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk. Everything was long jams, long guitar solos.... We missed music like it used to be."^[88] Ira Robbins and Scott Isler of Trouser Press describe the result:

With just four chords and one manic tempo, New York's Ramones blasted open the clogged arteries of mid-'70s rock, reanimating the music. Their genius was to recapture the short/simple aesthetic from which pop had strayed, adding a caustic sense of trash-culture humor and minimalist rhythm guitar sound.^[89]

As leaders in the punk rock scene, the Ramones' music has usually been identified with that label,^[1] while some have defined their characteristic style more specifically as pop punk^[90] and others as power pop.^[91] In the 1980s, the band sometimes veered into hardcore punk territory, as can be heard on Too Tough to Die.^[89]

On stage, the band adopted a focused approach directly intended to increase the audience's concert experience. Johnny's instructions to C.J. when preparing for his first live performances with the group were to play facing the audience, to stand with the bass slung low between spread legs, and to walk forward to the front of stage at the same time as he did. Johnny was not a fan of guitarists who performed facing their drummer, amplifier, or other band members.^[92]

Visual imagery[link]

The Ramones' art and visual imagery complemented the themes of their music and performance. The band members adopted a uniform look of long hair, leather jackets, T-shirts, torn jeans, and sneakers. This fashion emphasized minimalism, which was a powerful influence on the New York punk scene of the 1970s and reflected the band's short, simple songs.^[93] Tommy Ramone recalled that, both musically and visually, "we were influenced by comic books, movies, the Andy Warhol scene, and avant-garde films. I was a big Mad Magazine fan myself."^[93]

The band's logo was created by New York City artist Arturo Vega, a longtime friend who had allowed Joey and Dee Dee to move into his loft.^[94] Vega produced the band's T-shirts, their main source of income, basing most of the images on a black-and-white self-portrait photograph he had taken of his American bald eagle belt buckle which had appeared on the back sleeve of the Ramones' first album.^[95] He was inspired to create the band's logo after a trip to Washington, D.C.:

I saw them as the ultimate all-American band. To me, they reflected the American character in general—an almost childish innocent aggression.... I thought, 'The Great Seal of the President of the United States' would be perfect for the Ramones, with the eagle holding arrows—to symbolize strength and the aggression that would be used against whomever dares to attack us—and an olive branch, offered to those who want to be friendly. But we decided to change it a little bit. Instead of the olive branch, we had an apple tree branch, since the Ramones were American as apple pie. And since Johnny was such a baseball fanatic, we had the eagle hold a baseball bat instead of the [Great Seal]'s arrows.^[95]

The scroll in the eagle's beak originally read "Look out below", but this was soon changed to "Hey ho let's go" after the opening lyrics of the band's first single, "Blitzkrieg Bop". The arrowheads on the shield came from a design on a polyester shirt Vega had bought. The name "Ramones" was spelled out in block capitals above the logo using plastic stick-on letters.^[23] Where the presidential emblem read "Seal of the President of the United States" clockwise in the border around the eagle, Vega instead placed the pseudonyms of the four band members: Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, and Tommy. Over the years the names in the border would change as the band's lineup fluctuated.^[96]

Influence[link]

Johnny Ramone in concert, 1977

The Ramones had a broad and lasting influence on the development of popular music. Music historian Jon Savage writes of their debut album that "it remains one of the few records that changed pop forever."^[97] As described by Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, "The band's first four albums set the blueprint for punk, especially American punk and hardcore, for the next two decades."^[98] Trouser Press's Robbins and Isler similarly write that the Ramones "not only spearheaded the original new wave/punk movement, but also drew the blueprint for subsequent hardcore punk bands".^[89] Punk journalist Phil Strongman writes, "In purely musical terms, The Ramones, in attempting to re-create the excitement of pre-Dolby rock, were to cast a huge shadow—they had fused a blueprint for much of the indie future."^[24] Writing for Slate in 2001, Douglas Wolk described the Ramones as "easily the most influential group of the last 30 years."^[99]

The Ramones' debut album had an outsized effect relative to its modest sales. According to Tony James, a member of several seminal British punk bands, "Everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album. Punk rock—that rama-lama super fast stuff—is totally down to the Ramones. Bands were just playing in an MC5 groove until then."^[100] The Ramones' two July 1976 shows, like their debut album, are seen as having a significant impact on the style of many of the newly formed British punk acts—as one observer put it, "instantly nearly every band speeded up".^[101] The Ramones' first British concert, at London's Roundhouse concert hall, was held on July 4, 1976, the United States Bicentennial. The Sex Pistols were playing in Sheffield that evening, supported by The Clash, making their public debut. The next night, members of both bands attended the Ramones' gig at the Dingwall's club. Ramones manager Danny Fields recalls a conversation between Johnny Ramone and Clash bassist Paul Simonon (which he mislocates at the Roundhouse): "Johnny asked him, 'What do you do? Are you in a band?' Paul said, 'Well, we just rehearse. We call ourselves the Clash but we're not good enough.' Johnny said, 'Wait till you see us—we stink, we're lousy, we can't play. Just get out there and do it.'"^[102] Another band whose members saw the Ramones perform, The Damned, played their first show two days later. The central fanzine of the early UK punk scene, Sniffin' Glue, was named after the song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", which appeared on the debut LP.^[103]

Ramones concerts and recordings influenced many musicians central to the development of California punk as well, including Greg Ginn of Black Flag,^[104] Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys,^[105] Mike Ness of Social Distortion,^[106] Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion,^[107] and members of the Descendents.^[108] Canada's first major punk scenes—in Toronto and in British Columbia's Victoria and Vancouver—were also heavily influenced by the Ramones.^[39][109] In the late 1970s, many bands emerged with musical styles deeply indebted to the band's. There were The Lurkers from England,^[110] The Undertones from Ireland,^[111] Teenage Head from Canada,^[112] and The Zeros^[113] and The Dickies^[114] from southern California. The seminal hardcore band Bad Brains took its name from a Ramones song.^[115] The Riverdales, made up of former members of Screeching Weasel, have emulated the sound of the Ramones throughout their career.^[116] Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong named his son Joey in homage to Joey Ramone, and drummer Tré Cool named his daughter Ramona.^[117]

The Ramones also influenced musicians associated with other genres, such as heavy metal. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has described the importance of Johnny's rapid-fire guitar playing style to his own musical development.^[118] Motörhead lead singer Lemmy, a friend of the Ramones since the late 1970s, mixed the band's "Go Home Ann" in 1985. The members of Motörhead later composed the song "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." as a tribute, and Lemmy performed at the final Ramones concert in 1996.^[119] In the realm of alternative rock, the song "53rd and 3rd" lent its name to a British indie pop label cofounded by Stephen Pastel of the Scottish band The Pastels. Evan Dando of The Lemonheads,^[120] Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters,^[103] Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam^[121] (who introduced the band members at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction) and The Strokes^[122] are among the many alternative rock musicians who have credited the Ramones with inspiring them.^[123]

Tribute albums[link]

In April 2009, Spin writer Mark Prindle observed that the Ramones had to date "inspired a jaw-dropping 48 (at least!) full-length tribute records."^[124] The first Ramones tribute album featuring multiple performers was released in 1991: Gabba Gabba Hey: A Tribute to the Ramones includes tracks by such acts as The Flesh Eaters, L7, Mojo Nixon, and Bad Religion.^[123] In 2001, Dee Dee made a guest appearance on one track of Ramones Maniacs, a multi-artist cover of the entire Ramones Mania compilation album. The Song Ramones the Same, which came out the following year, includes performances by The Dictators, who were part of the early New York punk scene, and Wayne Kramer, guitarist for the influential protopunk band MC5. We're a Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones, released in 2003, features performers such as Green Day, Metallica, Kiss, The Offspring, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, and Rob Zombie (who also did the album cover artwork).^[125]

Punk bands such as Screeching Weasel, The Vindictives, The Queers, The Mr. T Experience, Boris the Sprinkler, Beatnik Termites, Tip Toppers, Jon Cougar Concentration Camp, Shonen Knife and McRackins have recorded cover versions of entire Ramones albums—Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin, End of the Century, Pleasant Dreams, Subterranean Jungle, and (two times) Too Tough to Die, respectively.^[124] The Huntingtons' File Under Ramones consists of Ramones covers from across the band's history.^[126]

Band members[link]

• Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Colvin) – bass guitar, vocals (1974–89)^[15]
• Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) – guitar (1974–96)^[15]
• Joey Ramone (Jeffry Hyman) – drums (1974), lead vocals (1974–96)^[15]
• Tommy Ramone (Thomas Erdelyi) – drums (1974–78)^[15]
• Marky Ramone (Marc Bell) – drums (1978–83, 1987–96)^[15]
• Richie Ramone (Richard Reinhardt) – drums, vocals (1983–87)^[15]
• Elvis Ramone (Clem Burke) – drums (1987)^[66]
• C. J. Ramone (Christopher Joseph Ward) – bass guitar, vocals (1989–96)^[15]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Ramones (1976)
• Leave Home (1977)
• Rocket to Russia (1977)
• Road to Ruin (1978)
• End of the Century (1980)
• Pleasant Dreams (1981)
• Subterranean Jungle (1983)
• Too Tough to Die (1984)
• Animal Boy (1986)
• Halfway to Sanity (1987)
• Brain Drain (1989)
• Mondo Bizarro (1992)
• Acid Eaters (1993)
• ¡Adios Amigos! (1995)

See also[link]

• List of Ramones concerts
• Gabba Gabba Hey

References[link]

Sources[link]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ramones

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ramones

• Ramones at the Open Directory Project