Mondo Bizarro (1992)

 Mondo Bizarro

Artist: The Ramones
Release Year: 1992

Rating: 6/10

Track Listing: 1) Censorshit; 2) The Job that Ate My Brain; 3) Poison Heart; 4) Anxiety; 5) Strength to Endure; 6) It's Gonna Be Alright; 7) Take It As It Comes; 8) Main Man; 9) Tomorrow She Goes Away; 10) I Won't Let It Happen; 11) Cabbies on Crack; 12) Heidi Is a Headcase; 13) Touring.

Another late-period Ramones album...what's there to say?  It's mindless, it's fun, but it's also a mere imitation of what once was.

The lack of technical abilities was almost a blessing in the early days, when they had something new to say, something novel to offer without the usual AOR trappings getting in the way.  Now, though, the novelty is over and their contemporaries have surpassed them...so what's left to do?  Well, mainly, they copy what others were doing as well as they can, like an uncool parent trying to ape their kids' new appropriation of the old trends.  The form is there, but the execution comes off as perfunctory and shallow.  Fortunately, though, the Ramones were always just unserious enough for this to not be a showstopper.  Hell- they even got Vernon Reid from Living Colour to play on "Cabbies on Crack", apparently to preempt the demand for wild guitar solos at least a bit.

The best by far is "Poison Heart", a melancholic anthem that only seems to become more relevant as the years go on.  Here's a song where I don't mind the bigger production, because the world-weary vibe is just self-aware and ironic enough to keep the thing from collapsing into laughable melodrama.  Other minor highlights include "Main Man" and "The Job that Ate My Brain", the latter if only for the universal experience it describes-- and hey, isn't that the best subject for these guys to tackle, now that their fans are all grown up and running the rat race?  Now that's creative evolution!

I can almost get onboard with their weird choice to cover The Doors on "Take It As It Comes", so the only real turd is the formless bleating of "ANXIETY, ANXIETY" in track 4 with nothing to redeem it.  "Touring" is a shameless copy of both "Rock and Roll High School" and "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker", but whatever.  The day we sincerely condemn the Ramones for a lack of variety is probably a harbinger of the apocalypse.

Anyway, relics the Ramones have become, but the young'uns still have a thing or two to learn from them.