10 Perfect Debut Albums In Rock Music History

Once rock reached the mid ‘70s, most bands had started to develop a severe amount of bloat. Even though some knockout bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple were still putting out the better material of their career, you could tell that they had reached another level of fame that was almost unattainable, as if they belonged on some other plane of existence. Rock and roll was always about the little guy though, and the Ramones took everything back to basics in more ways than one.

In just under half an hour, the Ramones’ self titled record rewrote the rulebook on what rock and roll could sound like in the mainstream, giving rise to the punk movement that was about to get going. While the Sex Pistols may have had a been more of the fashion of punk when they came out, The Ramones really embodied the aesthetic, looking to get up on stage without any hangups and melting your face off as fast as possible. Although most of the songs on this album are fairly simple musically speaking, what sets them apart is the sheer intensity of the speed, with everything turned up as loud as possible and sounding like the band might fall apart in hysterics halfway through the song.

Even though Johnny Ramone might not have been able to play a Jimmy Page guitar solo, he didn’t really need to either, looking to just give a nice compact experience and getting out of the way before the audience even knew what hit them. Aside from the aggression though, this was a return to the golden age of pop flavored rock, putting a biting twist on the format with Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue and Chain Saw. Punk may have been about attitude half the time, but nothing could get in the way of having a great song either.