Tracks
1. Cretin Hop
2. Rockaway Beach
3. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
4. Locket Love
5. I Don't Care
6. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
7. We're A Happy Family
8. Teenage Lobotomy
9. Do You Wanna Dance?
10. I Wanna Be Well
11. I Can't Give You Anything
12. Ramona
13. Surfin' Bird
14. Why Is It Always This Way?
15. Needle And Pins (Early Version)
16. Slug (Demo)
17. It's A Long Way Back To Germany (U.K. B Side)
18. I Don't Care (Single Version)
19. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (Single Version)
Performer Notes
- The Ramones: Joey Ramone (vocals); Johnny Ramone (guitar); Dee Dee Ramone (bass, background vocals); Tommy Ramone (drums).
- Producers: Tony Bongiovi, T. Erdelyi.
- Reissue producers: Bill Inglot, Gary Stewart.
- Engineers: Ed Stasium, Don Berman.
- Principally recorded at Media Sound, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Legs McNeil and Arturo Vega.
- Digitally remastered by Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot (Digiprep).
- Personnel: Joey Ramone (vocals); Johnny Ramone (guitar); Tommy Ramone (drums).
- Audio Remasterers: Daniel Hersch; Bill Inglot.
- Photographers: Bob Gruen; Robert Matheu.
- The third of the Ramones' original quartet of albums, 1977's ROCKET TO RUSSIA is actually a big improvement over the slightly disappointing LEAVE HOME, released earlier in 1977. While not as solidly perfect as RAMONES, ROCKET TO RUSSIA contains very little fat and boasts possibly the finest songs in the band's entire repertoire, "Rockaway Beach" and the immortal "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker." "We're a Happy Family" and "Teenage Lobotomy" are only slightly lesser tracks, and the covers of the Trashmen's gloriously silly "Surfin' Bird" and Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance" are conceptually perfect, linking the Ramones neatly with their garage rock and bubblegum roots.
- The bonus tracks on the 2001 Rhino reissue are less revelatory than the 1976 concert contained on the LEAVE HOME reissue, a motley but entertaining collection of demos, single mixes and one B-side, "It's a Long Way Back to Germany," but this disc's carefully remastered sound makes it sound better than all previous incarnations of the album, highlighting the extent to which the cleaner production complements the group's poppier, slightly more complex new songs.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.105) - Ranked #105 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "[T]heir first true studio triumph, an exuberant, polished bottling of the CBGB-stage napalm of RAMONES and LEAVE HOME..."
Q (5/02 SE, p.140) - Included in Q's "100 Best Punk Albums".
Q (8/01, pp.156-7) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Amongst their best work....an effort to appear more accessible....a bit of surfing, a handful of girls and some songs about not being very intelligent..."
Uncut (8/01, p.94) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...Sustaining the momentum, 1977's ROCKET TO RUSSIA offers a final lick of polish to the machinery..."
Mojo (Publisher) (3/03, p.76) - Ranked #35 in Mojo's "Top 50 Punk Albums" - "...[With] superior songwriting and production..."
NME (Magazine) (6/23/01, p.41) - 10 out of 10 - "...The most toweringly aggressive, misleadingly primitive, perfectly phrased musical statement ever made....The demos and alternate versions included demonstrate how finely honed every gangly gesture was from the very beginning..."
