(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
While they were often perceived as a whole entity with each member adopting the same uniform, surname, and snarl, Joey Ramone was arguably the leader of the celebrated Queens punk rock group The Ramones. With his gangly frame and cartoonish vocal style, his presence as the frontman was arguably one of the most distinctive ever witnessed in the history of rock music, and the amount that he and the rest of the group gave to the punk movement of the 1970s was matched by few others.
The band’s aesthetic was rebellious and snotty, both in the way they presented themselves and in their raucous guitar-driven sound, but their influences largely stemmed from ‘60s pop groups, as did their obsession with creating an instantly recognisable brand. There was never any mistaking who the Ramones were on record, and there was no mistaking who they were as individuals from their appearance.
However, you might think it would be embarrassing for someone like Joey Ramone to go on record and admit to liking artists like the Ronettes and the Monkees – two incredibly manufactured groups that were the antithesis of punk in the way that they chased commercial success and offered something that was so easily consumable for the public. Joey even admitted that he and his bandmates loved the Bay City Rollers, and that their song ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ was heavily influenced by their hit ‘Saturday Night’ for the way it incorporated a chant in the refrain.
While they also worshipped the Beatles, taking their name from a pseudonym that Paul McCartney used to use to check into hotels, Paul Ramon, they had plenty of hatred for acts that they thought were phoney or didn’t offer anything new and exciting like the music they had grown up on. When it came to dissing others, Joey Ramone was incredibly outspoken and something of a savage. There’s plenty that Joey Ramone hated about his contemporaries and bands that came after The Ramones, but these are some of the ones he detested the most.
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