10 Best Debut Rock Albums
6. Ramones - Ramones
Towards the mid-70's, rock music started to get a bit bloated. The landscape at the time was dominated by prog rock and AOR and songs were starting to become 10-minute exercises. Something was rising from the underground though, and four brats from New York showed us all how its done.
Ramones used their debut record to write the handbook on what would become punk rock. While the Sex Pistols fired the initial shot, The Ramones had the building blocks for punk's songwriting aesthetic: fast, short and to the point. The album sits at a lean 29 minutes, but the band does waste a shred of time as they blaze through punk odes to prostitution, horror movies, and sniffing glue.
If you're looking for solos, you're out of luck my friend. The Ramones don't care for that kind of indulgence. Each song is simple power chords and a fast tempo. Yeah it's not flashy, but that's the point. It's all about the hard work ethic behind it. If these guys can do it, you can too. After years of rock being a bit monotonous, the Ramones stripped it back to basics and created an entire cultural revolution with this record.