A Tribute To The Ramones

Comparing the insipid, whiney ramblings of The Offspring and Rancid to the incendiary anthems of movement-instigators The Sex Pistols, The New York Dolls and The Ramones is like comparing a firecracker to a nuclear explosion. But then you already knew that.

Of course, the MTV brigade dutifully lined up to take part in Tribute To The Ramones, a high-production value (sample credit: liner notes by Stephen King), fifteen track collection of Ramones covers. It goes without saying that the raw material the bands had to work with was 24 carat punk-pop gold, gloriously demented odes to the pain and ecstasy of adolescent desire.

It has to be noted, though, that Ramones tunes don’t especially lend themselves to being covered. Played with anything other than furious energy these songs would lose their spark and vitality. Thus, we have U2 offering a pretty straight take on ‘Beat On The Brat’, whilst Eddie Vedder and Metallica deliver by-the-numbers renditions of, respectively, ‘I Believe In Miracles’ and ‘53rd And 3rd’ – all fine as far as it goes, but little new is being brought to the party.

Marilyn Manson and old-stager Tom Waits save the day. Manson follow their criminally underrated makeovers of ‘Tainted Love’ and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ ‘Put A Spell On You’ (from the Lost Highway soundtrack), with the brilliantly eerie narcosis of ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’. Waits, meanwhile, does a magnificently skewed, hobo-blues take on ‘Return Of Jackie And Judie’, with Primus’ Les Claypool chipping in with some suitably deranged fuzz bass.

A Tribute To The Ramones is a reasonably decent encomia to one of the all-time great bands, but really, the originals are hard to improve on.