0560. Ramones
Ramones

Okay, so while Iggy and The Stooges were the proto-punks, the eponymous debut from the Ramones gave the genre it's flagship.

From the start of Blitzkrig Bop to the end of Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World I wish I could work in something about a "biting social commentary", but that's not it with this album. This finds its excellence in its irreverence (among many things, being Jewish and singing "I'm a nazi" - don't worry, there actually is a good explanation for that - as well as from out of nowhere covering Let's Dance).

With the 60's pop of I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend and the gutter-slasher of 53rd & 3rd (partly about Dee Dee Ramone's days as a prostitute) sharing the needle with Blitzkrieg Bop and Beat On The Brat, the lyrics are hard to pigeonhole, but the common denominator is "stripped".

There are no embellishments here. It's short, it's bare, it's great.