http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/magazine/29RAMONE.html Every year the NY Times devotes the final Sunday Magazine of the year to famous and not-so-famous people who died in the past year. And usually, they do at least one juxtoposition of someone whose death was widely noted and someone else similar whose death deserved more attention. This year, it's Dee Dee vs. Robbin. The author's argument: "The reason Crosby's June 6 death was mostly ignored is that his band seemed corporate and fake and pedestrian; the reason Ramone's June 5 death will be remembered is that his band was seen as representative of a counterculture that lacked a voice. But the contradiction is that countercultures get endless media attention: the only American perspectives thought to have any meaningful impact are those that come from the fringes. The voice of the counterculture is, in fact, inexplicably deafening. Meanwhile, mainstream culture (i.e., the millions and millions of people who bought Ratt albums merely because that music happened to be the soundtrack for their lives) is usually portrayed as an army of mindless automatons who provide that counterculture with something to rail against. The things that matter to normal people are not supposed to matter to smart people." I think the author makes some interesting points, but he seems to forget that time is the ultimate test of quality and relevance. Ramones albums still sell, and well into the late 90s they were selling out 3000-seat Roseland and whipping people into a frenzy at the Lollapalooza festival. Last time I checked, the millions of people who bought Ratt albums in the 80s were not lining up outside Irving Plaza to see their sixth or seventh attempt at a comeback. Thoughts, comments?
I think his points are stronger and in a way, mirror the little debate I was having re: Garth Brooks. I think the Ramones, being a New York band, are championed in a way that IMO is larger than their actual influence;often coming off as haigiography. Musically they really didn't offer anything new-in fact it was just that point that has given them their place in history: they brought rock music back closer to its roots: a stripped down, harder and faster version of Chuck Berry. The Ramones importance-similar to Nirvana-comes from juxtaposing their music with what was the scene at that particular time, and how they shifted the scene away from the larger mass market form of pop music-something, as the writer notes, that is always championed by the hip arbiters of taste in the press. It's a large part of their job description: to be critical and try to seperate the fluff from the genuine articles. I think we would agree that from an aesthetic view, the Ramones are a better, more important band than Ratt. But Ratt were part of a scene that was quite large and popular-ironically, the same scene that Nirvana would similarly change. I mean is Donna Summer a more important artist than Aretha Franklin? Of course not. But writing a history of that time during the late 1970's she (and others) would be a large figure, and her obit I think should note that-regardless of her aesthetic value/importance to the history of pop music. To put it another way: sometimes "fluff" matters and at times can define a period, marking it as important as the real inovators. And to take the writers point, the voices of the hipsters should not always drown-out/erase their place in history.
I think there are a couple more points than Klosterman (who by the way, for those who don't know him, is a fine writer and Editor for Spin Magazine) touches upon to explain the difference in percieved importance between these two guys. The personalities of the two guys were totally different. Anyone who's ever met Dee Dee has walked away thinking they've made a new best friend. On the other hand, Crosby has always been percieved as a straight-up doper. The recent Motley Crue autobiography illustrated how Crosby was one of the Kings of the Sunset Strip junk scene from way back. Although it was no secret that Dee Dee was an addict as well, he was an interesting guy to be around, always telling stories or jokes, and really didn't make a big deal of his drug use. Crosby, I've heard, was completely the opposite, and all about the score/nod/repeat cycle. I think it's quite simple to care more for somebody's death when they are "likeable" than "unlikeable". Another thing Klosterman did not (and would not) point out is that many music critics, like musicians and many music fans, have intense jealousy issues with musicians who become successful. Once a band hits it big and has more dough than the critic will ever see in his life, the critic will invariably cross that band off his favorite list for eternity, even if that same critic championed that band before the success. Not that Ratt was ever a critical success, but the fact that they were successful anyway insured them eternal ignorance from any critic outside the hair-metal scene. Conversely, The Ramones have always been perceived as underdogs, and for some reason have never been seen as commercial success stories, even though they made truckloads of cash in their long career. Granted, much of that money was wasted on a lot of drugs over the years, but Klosterman may be mistaken when he suggests that "Round & Round" has gotten more air spins than the entire Ramones catalog combined...."I Wanna Be Sedated" is a Saturday Night Dance Party staple on countless Top-40 stations across the country, "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Rockaway Beach" have been featured in several major ad campaigns, and Ramones songs are on dozens of decent selling soundtrack and "best-of" compilations. Years of relentless touring (always at a profit), combined with massively paying stadium headlining gigs in South America and a big-bucks farewell stint on Lollapalooza didn't really make them much less rich than Ratt. But, maybe mostly because of how they looked, The Ramones have always been percieved as skint underdogs...and who doesn't root for the underdog? Even the guys who decide how much obituary space do. Finally, when I heard about both deaths, I remembered thinking that Crosby would not get a proper seeing-off in the press like Dee Dee because Crosby died of AIDS, and I think I was probably right. For some reason still unfathomable to me, a smack OD by an artist always ends up being treated with much more respect than it should...it always seems to turn the "artist" into "tortured artist" in his legacy, whether deserved or not. I think the general public still blames someone for dying of AIDS, but a drug death seems to be treated as "a mistake". Pretty silly to me.
why is it DeeDee Ramone vs Robin Crosby what about freakin Layne Staley his death was somewhat similar to the guy in Ratt. His death probably due to how he died wasn't as publized that much either. if the author wanted to do comparisons of deaths that got a lot of attention vs ones that didnt and why so he should have used Staley as an example because even though Alice in Chains were way more repected than Ratt by the media Staleys death didnt get nearly as much press as Ramone, Joe Strummer or Lisa Lopes. Staleys death got barely as much attention if not the same amount as the guy in Ratt. So the argument that Robin Crosbys death got minor press because his band was perceived as a joke doesnt wash because AIC was much respected by most and Staleys death didnt get as much coverage as Ramone.
It's true Alice In Chains were more respected and artistically a better band than Ratt IMO. But not by much in the eyes of a lot of critics. I remember reading a lot of reviews when they broke-how they were opportunist riding the Seattle wave; "grunge lite"; etc. I didn't think it was really fair knock, as I thought they matured musically and when I saw them on the third Lollapalooza tour, they played a very good set. But I think they were still on the receiving end of "Seattle thing" backlash, and in the eyes of a lot of critics don't really rate.
The author picked these two guys specifically because they died within hours of each other, making the media coverage easy to compare and contrast.
Another big distinction - Ratt (and other "hair bands" of that era) pretty much sucked. The Ramones were good. I read the article, and it was pretty interesting. I personally never got into Ratt, Poison, Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, etc etc, and admit that when Guns 'N Roses first came along I dismissed them as a no-talent hair band too. As far as I'm concerned, those bands from the 80s (with the exception of the Gunners) were that decade's equivalent of today's N-Sync, O-Town, whatever crap is popular on top 40 today. I was more a new waver/punker/goth, and every now and again my musical choices "crossed over" to mainstream stuff, but only because what I listented to became mainstream (The Cure, INXS, The Clash, Simple Minds, REM, Devo, Madness, etc). I listened to "alternative" when "alternative" still meant that no one else listened to it. I used to listen to WHFS, and remember when a co-worker asked me if it stood for W How F-ing Strange.
Your opinion only. "Good" and "Sucks" are subjective. I'm as big a Ramones fan as anyone I know, but to me "Round & Round" is one of the catchiest and most fun songs of that whole era.
Fair enough. Like I said, I never got into any of the "hair bands." I know a lot of people who did, but for me, any stuff they did that might have been good was overshadowed by the fact that I never really liked ANY top 40 stuff in the 80s. It probably goes back to my sister listening to the Osmond Brothers, which drove me frickin' crazy when we were kids.
The only problem I have with the whole premise is that the author calls the Ramones a , "seminal late-70's punk band" and Ratt a "seminal early-80's heavy-metal band." Regardless of your taste and your opinion of punk vs. hair metal, which is totally subjective, I just don't think Ratt was as important as the Ramones in their respective scene. Within the late 70s punk scene the Ramones were truly one of the pioneers and a band that everyone within the scene looked to. Ratt on the other hand, always seemed to me as a decent hair-metal band, but never one of the leaders or great influences, even within their genre. If, say, one of the guys from Motley Crue or even Poison had died, it would be more of a valid comparison - to me at least.
Footix -- If can expand a bit on what you said in your first post, I think that the primary difference between the two bands is that Ratt operated as a business model while (publicly) Ramones didn't. I don't think that even Steven Pearcy would disagree with the idea that Ratt's primary goals were to make money and get laid, and music was the medium by which they thought they could do that best. If Pearcy thought that he could make more money and get laid more often selling hot dogs, he'd probably switch to that. And that, not the AIDS itself, is what would make Crosby's death a non-issue to critics. They would say that Ratt's boundless pursuit of rock's excesses throughout the 80s was obviously going to have bad circumstances because blindly pursuing money, drugs and women is an affront to the belief that rock music criticism is somehow important enough to be a full-time career and worthy of Pulitzer consideration. With the Ramones, there was no clear business model to playing CBGB. None of their albums ever went platinum, and they never had a big arena tour with flashing lights and go-go girls. The fact that they eventually got themselves into all of the same vices that Ratt embraced from the start was almost by accident, as opposed to the purpose of it all. Dee Dee got a free pass from critics because Ramones made critics feel important, like writing about their silly little two-minute pop songs was noble.
I think Obie makes a good point here. In addition, to the best of my recollection, the author of the article really didn't touch on the amount of influence that the respective bands had upon other bands. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we can all concede that the Ramones ended up being a major influence upon scores of other bands, while Ratt was just one of several hair metal bands plying the same musical trade on the Sunset Strip, none of which have served as major influences on any bands as time has progressed. I think that's part of the reason why the media was all over Dee Dee's death, but not Crosby's. Of course, I must offer a qualification to my opinion here, and that is this: I, like the critics, detested hair metal, thinking of it as music for mental midgets. Perhaps that's musical elitism or whatever you want to call it, but that's the way I saw it.