Tom Dunne: Looking forward to the year ahead by looking back on The Ramones
The Ramones: Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramone. Picture: Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images
The year ahead promises many great anniversaries to celebrate. There are the usual lists of albums turning 50 ( , ), albums turning 40 ( , ), albums at 30 ( , ), and blow-ins turning 20 from the Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse.
You will see a lot of “Final Tour” notices. Cabaret Voltaire, The Damned, the B52s, Devo, Bad Manners and a few others have passed last-minute medicals and been told to “get out there and don’t come back”. And how can I say this: if they are playing near you, don’t put off going.
Paul Simon plays 3Arena on May 20 despite having absolutely called it a day a few years back. David Byrne, as creative and playful as ever, is in the same venue in February. The big festivals will be Irish-dominated, with CMAT and Fontaines DC at Electric Picnic, and Kneecap at ATN. Spoilt for choice.
But the real story of 2026 will be things turning 50. As mentioned, it had both and , pinnacles of American AOR rock. It had Bowie’s , Stevie Wonder’s , ABBA’s and a Boston album that was regarded as the peak of modern recording techniques.
But it had too the debut album from a bunch of leather-clad freaks from Queens who could hardly play their instruments. Recorded in six days in January at a cost of $6,400, The Ramones self-titled album was released on April 23, 1976, to little fanfare. It reached number 111 in the Billboard charts.
And that should have been that. But it wasn’t. Blitzkrieg Bop was the first single and from the moment anyone of a certain age heard its refrain “Hey Ho Let’s Go” it was time up for anyone over 22 who owned flared trousers. Not that they knew it yet. They’d get another Christmas out of it, but then it was P45s all round.
John Peel’s reaction to the record is the stuff of legend. He had borrowed it from the Virgin Megastore and remembers listening to it with a sense of excitement and fear. Excitement in that it got to him as viscerally as Little Richard had and fear in a realisation the album heralded the end of the existing musical world order.
He played five songs that night, May 19, 1976. These elicited a torrent of abuse from listeners, which only served to make him double down. He became a champion of punk rock, not that there was a lot of that to champion at the time. But help was coming.
The story of the Sex Pistols and their conquering of the UK is almost comic book stuff. They played their first shows in February. People at that show invited them to Manchester. People in that tiny audience of only 40 went on to form The Smiths, Joy Division, The Buzzcocks and the Fall. It was like the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.
The Clash were one of the bands that formed immediately. By July, they were playing dates with the Pistols. On July 4, both bands travelled to see The Ramones debut UK show at The Roundhouse. They were not let in as the venue had been pre-warned about them.
Incredibly, like a scene from Shakespeare, they shouted up to the dressing room window and Joey Ramones helped hoist them up and in. On December 1, the Pistols did the Bill Grundy interview. On December 2, the tabloids denounced . It was game, set and match to punk rock.
All of those events have anniversaries in 2026. Disney, Apple, Netflix with your deep pockets surely there is something you can do? If this isn’t the greatest music story ever told, what is?
