Why the Ramones Matter

By: Donna Gaines

Narrated by: Curt Bonnem

The central experience of the Ramones and their music is of being an outsider, an outcast, a person who’s somehow defective, and the revolt against shame and self-loathing. The fans, argues Donna Gaines, got it right away, from their own experience of alienation at home, at school, on the streets, and from themselves.

This sense of estrangement and marginality permeates everything the Ramones still offer us as artists, and as people. Why the Ramones Matter compellingly makes the case that the Ramones gave us everything; they saved rock and roll, modeled DIY ethics, and addressed our deepest collective traumas, from the personal to the historical.

©2022 Donna Gaines (P)2022 Spotify Audiobooks

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Structurally boring insights unremarkable a flat white male lens throughout most of the book maybe to write to an assumed audience. Women and black perspectives and influences in punk and rock and roll relegated to the last chapter and even that was boring. The critical and theoretical lenses just weren’t doing a lot. Like someone applied an intro sociology text to the band.