There comes a time in every band's career when a wall is hit. It doesn't matter if you're a multiplatinum artist or an infamous underground group; eventually you'll put out an album that your fans won't care about. Maybe your sound has gone stale, or maybe you've lost a bandmate, or maybe we're just sick of your face. Regardless of the reason, the wall is coming, and sooner or later you're going to crash right into it.
For the Ramones, this seems to have been their seventh studio album, Subterranean Jungle. The record was standard Ramones fare that by all accounts should have been a winner. While it wasn't exactly a flop, having peaked at 83 on the Billboard 200, it did fail to make any meaningful impact and is mostly forgotten today. So, what’s the deal? Why did this sure thing go bust?
One of the most common complaints you hear about this album is that it sounds like they used a drum machine for the percussion, and honestly, yeah, it does. Frankly, a kid who had never picked up a drumstick in their life could come up with better stuff than Marky Ramone gave us on this album. It is brutally repetitive—one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four; bass, bass, snare, bass—I could see how that may grow tiring for some.
They also made the interesting choice of opening the album with not one but two covers, “Little Bit O’ Soul,” originally by The Little Darlings, and “I Need Your Love,” first recorded by Bobby Dee Waxman. These are both solid covers; however, they aren’t anything special. I doubt you’ll find yourself skipping over these first two tracks. Still, when I got to the first original song, “Outsider,” I couldn’t help but feel that it would have been a much stronger opener.
The rest of the album is about what you would expect from the Ramones. The band backpedaled on the explorative directions they had taken with their previous two albums, trying to capture that original punk rock style that brought them into the limelight in the first place. That being said, you can still hear some of that experimentation throughout, such as in the case of “Time Has Come Today,” which is more of a heavy psychedelic song. The band had some internal struggles with the conception of Subterranean Jungle due to stylistic preferences and ongoing substance abuse problems. This led to the album being mostly typical Ramones tunes with a few oddballs sprinkled throughout. Sure, we got “Psycho Therapy,” which, despite initially failing to chart, has grown into one of the band’s most iconic singles, but we also got “What’d Ya Do?,” which is significantly more whiny than other Ramones songs and more befitting pop punk than punk rock.
At this point I feel it’s important to explicitly state that I enjoy this album. Yes, it does suffer from all the quirks mentioned above, but it is still a solid record. It has gained a following posthumously, thriving now in the days of streaming, where you can pick out your favorite songs and ignore the rest. So, was that the problem all along? One too many mediocre songs breaking up the flow of the good stuff? No, I don’t think so.
Like I said before, sooner or later, every band hits a wall. You will have an album that doesn’t perform; it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. That is unless you decide to put out three great albums and then disband; better to burn out than to fade away, right? I think the Ramones had simply hit their wall. Their previous two albums had been divergent from their typical sound, which was off-putting for many fans. To come back from that, they would have needed an album that was complete dynamite. Instead, we got something that was just pretty good, which was like a carcass falling into piranha-infested waters for the mass of bloodthirsty fans frothing at the mouth for something to rip apart. I think that is another reason why Subterranean Jungle is seeing something of a second life in the present day. Forty-two years after its initial release, we have forgotten the context of the times and can enjoy it for what it is instead of attacking it for failing to be what we wanted.
If you’re already a Ramones fan, you’ve more than likely already heard a few tracks off this album. If you’re not a Ramones fan, why not? This is classic punk rock, the very foundations that gave us modern bands like the Offspring and Winona Fighter. Go listen to Subterranean Jungle; with a runtime of just thirty-three minutes, there’s no reason not to.
