The Ramones-Leave Home 2001 Expanded Edition CD
 

Back in the day, album 2 by The Ramones sounded to many like a bad sequel to an especially crude horror movie that would have inspired them. It is in many ways the same as the first album except with more of a pop focus. Really, if you want to you could say that the first Ramones album was the brain child of Johnny with the emphasis on weirdness, Nazis, and a harsher sound that more directly emanates from The Stooges while Leave Home is more of a Joey album with it's abundance of love songs and musical devices more closely linking it with the rock and roll of the fifties and sixties. That and Tommy was improving as a producer (or trying to sound more professional nonetheless).

Today the second Ramones album is numero 2 in a string of 4 that came to define the band who released it as well as define a new style of rock and roll music. It contains lyrics and images that seem to have a direct relation to other more successful punkers Green Day and Blink-182. Adolescence (or something a little bit later). Obnoxiousness. Being a Pinhead. It's all there.

The only catch (if it's really a catch--more info later) is that this is arguably the weakest of the first four Ramones albums. It does feature "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" and "Pinhead" (that's pre-Hellraiser) and shows their more sensitive side what with all the love songs. But then again that is kind of the problem, the love songs are occasionally not the most memorable (that comes later in Rocket to Russia and, especially, Road to Ruin). They are well written, they just don't stand out like "Chainsaw" or "Locket Love" do. All things said and done though, it's important to remember that this is the first 4 Ramones albums we are discussing. The weakest link with those kind of parameters is still something like the greatest pop-punk ever recorded.

This edition also includes an early (well produced) live show from The Roxy in 1976 that captures the band in all their 1-2-3-4 intensity. And now that these have been on the market for a few years what was once a 20+ is now a 15 or even a 10 in the ol' dollars division. What a deal.

Rating: 5/5