That the Ramones were able to subtly broaden their horizons without sinking into the studio-bred sterility against which they had originally reacted was a tribute both to their commitment to their chosen form (short and sweet) and to their generally unheralded abilities as perhaps the most prolific and adept trash-rock tunesmiths since the golden years of Broadway’s Brill Building (when songwriting teams like Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich cranked out hits-to-order for everyone from Eydie Gorme to Little Eva).
Such refinements, however tentative, would have been unthinkable in the heyday of punk. And so, after releasing three of the more wonderful records of the Seventies - LPs whose strict stylistic concision was an integral part of their charm - the group began, on Road to Ruin (1978), to experiment with its sound, building it up from ground zero with the cautious addition of acoustic twelve-strings and even guitar solos. But just as certainly, they saw no point in simply burning out (à la Johnny Rotten & Company) either. Surely they were aware, as Neil Young once noted, that rust never sleeps. The official demise of punk left the Ramones in an artistic bind, however.
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