Pleasing Pleasant Pop Dreams

In what must have been the backlash to working with Phil Spector, the now divided Ramones entered the studio with Yardbirds' man Graham Gouldman and recorded a stripped down and clean dozen songs. Divided between Joey's anger at the music business (the anthem "We Want The Airwaves" and the bitterly tongue in cheek "This Business Is Killing Me") and Dee Dee's punk paeans to NYC ("All's Quiet On The Eastern Front") and isolation angst ("Sitting In My Room," "You Sound Like Your Sick"), "Pleasant Dreams" threw the Spector sound out the door in favor of Gouldman's finer, more commercial touch. Not everyone in the group was happy with this; Johnny was so p-o'd with his band mates that he didn't contribute any songs. That left "We Want The Airwaves" and the classic "The KKK Took My Baby Away" to come closest to the typical Ramones sound.



What everyone missed at the time was that "Pleasant Dreams" probably had more ringers in the hit single department than "End Of The Century." Both "Don't Go" and "She's a Sensation" had hooks galore, and even "Airwaves," despite its indictment of the boring corporate radio of the period, would have sounded fine next to Pat Benatar and Foreigner. The "Chop Suey" B-Side (included as a bonus track and featuring The B-52s girls and Debbie Harry) should have been accepted right alongside of Flock Of Seagulls.



Alas, not to be in 1981. Overshadowed by the failure of "End Of The Century," "Pleasant Dreams" and its competent and well finessed punk-pop saw the Ramones holding the bag once again. It remains another 4-star album that only got its due years after its release and only after Joey and Dee Dee were gone.

Precursor to emo? Much deeper album than you EVER imagined!

Having just seen the End Of The Century: The Story of the Ramones film, I had to go back to re-listen to this album knowing now the internal status of the band at that point.



And I was blown away.



What I thought was a light, poppy album designed to appeal to the widest audience and finally get the Ramones some record sales was anything but.



I won't spoil this album for anyone who has yet to see this brilliant new documentary, but if you are more than just the casual Ramones fan (owning more Ramones albums than t-shirts), and want to see this band at their most emotionally open and vulnerable, SEE THIS FILM, and then LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM. If you don't have it, BUY IT RIGHT NOW.



You discover why Joey's lyrics are divided into the two themes (record-business bitterness and heartbreak), why from this album and beyond Ramones songs are credited individually, what paranoia inspired Dee Dee's tracks, and why the "classic" Ramones sound/Johnny songwriting is largely absent.

From Joey's tracks like "The KKK Took My Baby Away," and "Don't Go" this album is a precursor to emo, 15 years before Pinkerton.

To discover the meaning after Joey and Dee Dee's deaths only intensifies the impact



On a whole, this is a great reissue with photos, slipcover, and bonus tracks. Great to hear Touring 10 years prior to 1992 release, and the hard to find Joey w/Debbie Harry and the B-52 gals "Chop Suey."

Very Pleasent Indeed!

This is easily one my favorite Ramones' albums and I have them all. What is so special about it, are the many quiet masterpieces on it that have somehow got lost in the shufle over the years. I am talking about songs like "Sitting In My Room" and "This Business is Killing Me." Moreover, the pleasing Beach Boy-like melodies really make this a pleasent listening experiment. Great stuff from America's greatest rock band.