Pleasant Dreams

Before I formally begin, here's a small paragraph on the album cover...

If you ever go to a record shop or search for Pleasant Dreams in any online store, you'll probably notice that
this album has one of the band's worst cover art pieces. It with a bizarre painting of a man hidden by a light, forming a silhouette with a trench coat and hat (Is it a noir detective? Maybe it's the Boogieman.). The Expanded Edition of the album has the original cover art on the back of the album's booklet; a black and white photo of the boys together with a dream-like appearance due to the smoke surrounding them. It was a creepier cover art that wouldn't have fit the music on the album, but it was ten times better than the horrendous art they stayed with.

So...



The era of Pop-Ramones began with End of the Century, the collaboration between Phil Spector and the Ramones, and ended with Subterranean Jungle, the closest the band ever got to giving up their original style. In between those albums was Pleasant Dreams, an album that has a poppier sound than End of the Century's attempted retro sound, but the sound is closer to the boys in spirit than Subterranean Jungle's misguided hard rock. I won't disregard this album as nothing more than the K.K.K. song album, as there are few tracks that are worth a listen.

I won't discuss the musicianship on this album in much detail as a Pop-Ramones album usually raises my bullshit meter with the intricate guitar and bass playing. Did John and Dee Dee really play those riffs and solos? Probably not. There are some extra bells and whistles that come out in the poppier tracks, like the alarm in "It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)" and the weird sounding guitars on "We Want the Airwaves". Listening to these albums back to back makes me miss the band's original sound, but this album has "The K.K.K. Took My Baby Away", a song that sounds akin to the earlier material (in simple terms - they can actually play this song without help.) Joey gets double tracked in a bonus song, and Marky bangs the drums like he should, so yeah...This album has a cleaner sound than albums before it, but the boys have tightened up their production since Rocket to Russia, so it isn't much of a factor. One thing I do have to point out: Dee Dee should have been put aside for "All Quiet on the Eastern Front". The song is not the band's best, and Dee Dee's vocals make it worse to listen to.

Songwriting-wise, this album is a mixed bag (Pure 50/50 for me. I can listen to about half of this album and discard the rest.). I love the opener "We Want the Airwaves", a song about their lack of airplay on radios (and TV by this point). "The K.K.K. Took My Baby Away", whose title is basically the song's whole premise, is one of my favorite Ramones songs overall and it's the highest point on this album.

"7-11" is an unheralded track as it works more as a pastiche of 60's death rock ballads, complete with a talking bridge a la the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack". (It's a brilliant homage with great lyrics..."Oncoming car went out of control. It crushed my baby and it crushed my soul" This song is Joey's finest on the album.) There's a few stinkers in here. I've discussed "All Quiet on the Eastern Front", but "It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)" is close to vile. The lyrics are nothing but endless name drops (Stephen King, Spector, Clint Eastwood...really) with crappy music backing it. If you ave free time to search for stuff online, this song also has a music video which makes it about 10 times worse. "You Sound Like Your Sick", "Come On Now", "Sitting in My Room", they all go under the category of bad filler. Every song on this album has its hooks, but the way they are presented make all the difference - and the songs I named are skippable. You can live without ever hearing those tracks (and most of the stuff on Subterranean Jungle...)

Pleasant Dreams is better than Subterranean Jungle, and it's as equally retro as End of the Century. Unlike Subterranean Jungle, there is a legitimate classic on this album, "The K.K.K. Took My Baby Away", and a minor goody, "We Want the Airwaves", plus the deep cut "7-11". There is some major filler on this album, but most of the songs are tolerable and a few caught my attention. It's fun album, and while it won't easily compare to band's finest moments, it's not an album that deserves most of its negativity.

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Having looked back at Pleasant Dreams, I am done with the Early Ramones and the Pop Ramones era. After this, the Ramones become darker and edgier (in Ramones terms - it gets personal) with the Tough-Ramones era, symbolized by the drumming sounds of Richie Ramone and Dee Dee's lyrical takeover. I already looked back at Too Tough to Die, therefore our next album will be Animal Boy.