Miss Piggy Lunchbox

I can definitely see the appeal of ripping out this record and breaking s**t with your friends in 1976 when the economy sucked, there was no Internet, and there were hardly any choices on TV. 31 years later, though, I can’t help but wonder why this album is so long, even though it only constitutes 29 minutes. They could have done the exact same album in about 12 minutes and I think it would have been a lot better. You’ve heard “Blitzkrieg Bop,” you’ve almost heard the whole album twice.

So, yeah, the repetitiveness gets to me. But there are loads of good licks here, and I absolutely love the clean sound Ramones have with those palpable little bass licks that provide a little bit of relief for my brain from the three-chord monotony that they bash into me with each song. Most of these songs could be a minute long: 15 seconds for exposition, 30 seconds for “development,” and another 15 seconds to bring everything to a close. As much attention as Ramones get for being “frantic,” “frenetic,” “energetic,” “fast” and all the other adjectives that seem silly now that modern ears make them sound tame, they sure did a lousy job of ratcheting up the energy mid-song. Honestly, I don’t understand all the crap Green Day gets for ripping off bands like Ramones when, while they were obviously heavily influenced by them, they also brought their own thing to the table and raised the quality of the pop punk thing a notch or two.

The lyrics are as simple as the songs, and probably even more annoying. They’re like a three-year-old, only able to tell you very simple concepts, like what they want and don’t want. Let’s take a tour through some song titles: “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue,” “I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement,” “I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You.” It’s kind of surprising there’s no “I Want A Cookie” or “I Don’t Want To Take A Nap.”

Every once in a while they put it all together. “Havana Affair” is the most exemplary song on here. With the cannon-shot percussion, the brilliant lyrical commentary on the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the infectious tune, you don’t mind that they do the whole song twice in under two minutes because it’s so awesome you want to hear it again.

And most of these songs have that awesome catchy tune somewhere in there. It’s just that repetitiveness that subtracts from everything. And so I’m forced to subtract a half-lunchbox from the rating. Whereas most 3.5-lunchbox ratings are rewards to mediocre albums for having a few moments of transcendence, this one is a penalization for not being as good as it should be given the band’s ability to write catchy hooks.

I know, I know. This is largely considered one of the first punk albums, and certainly one of the first New York punk albums. And it gets a ton of credit just for being super influential. But solo listening in 2007 is not where this is at, unless you’re going for nostalgia, and the only nostalgia I have from 1976 is for being able to go to the bathroom in my pants. No, this is one more album that is rated much more highly than it should be by aging rock critics who are judging it more on its place in rock history than its musical quality.

Rating:

Mix CD Candidates: “Havana Affair”
DMP Keepers: “Judy Is A Punk” (I’m a sucker for handclaps)
Filed Between: Radiohead (OK Computer) and Rasputina (Thanks for the Ether)

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under CD reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.