The debate around the greatest punk band of all time will rage on until the end if time, but for my money, it’ll always be The Ramones. Sure, the Sex Pistols’ anarchic chaos was exciting, but The Ramones were just fun, and their influence on the genre could not be more blatant than in the rise of punk in the ’90s with bands like Green Day and the Offspring.
Interestingly, frontman Joey Ramone had some thoughts on those bands and their place in the punk/rock scene, thoughts he shared in an interview with the L.A. Times in 1995. During the conversation, Joey was asked if he felt that bands who were part of the decade’s “punk-rock resurgence are tapping [into] the same spirit” that The Ramones performed with in the ’70s.
“Well, not exactly. Some of them are,” Joey replied. “I see music today as more of a business than ever before. When I was a kid growing up in the ‘60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it’s just like a big business.”
Name-dropping a few bands that he really liked at the time, Joey shared, “There are some really good bands out there. I guess my favorite new band is Hole. I find [Courtney Love] to be totally unpredictable and primal, kind of spiritual, and she’s just herself, she’s not buying into all the [expletive]. I like Rancid, I like Green Day. I like the bands that have more of an edge to them.”
Always one to be candid, Joey also explained that there were some bands he felt did not embody the same punk spirit, but were still part of the scene anyway. “There’s a whole slew of bands that have just really bought into the system, the whole business of it, the formula,” he said, “like Weezer and Sponge and all these bands that sound like Pearl Jam.”
“There’s this whole formula sound goin’ on where everybody kind of sounds like the Ramones and the singer sounds like a cross between Eddie Vedder and the singer from the Stone Temple Pilots,” Joey added. “That’s the new sound, like Silverchair and Sponge and all this crap. That’s the new alternative formula.”
While I can’t agree with throwing other artists under the bus, I will say that Joey was 1000 percent right about Hole. Easily one of the most underrated and overlooked grunge bands to emerge in the ’90s. The man knew good music when he heard it.
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