Brain Drain

Ramones album covers sometimes give away the quality of an album. Pleasant Dreams, Subterranean Jungle, Animal Boy, Acid Eaters, Adios Amigos - they all are flawed albums with craptastic covers. Brain Drain joins the group as another album whose cover says too much about the album than it has any right to. The cover portrays a man screaming as he's fading away from his head, colored in brown, red, yellow, and black. This cover is not as ugly as the previously mentioned albums, but there was a member or two of the band who probably felt like the man on the cover.

Dee Dee Ramone had enough of the Ramones by the time this album was done. In the documentary End of the Century, Richie Ramone remembers that Dee Dee and him were thinking of leaving after Halfway to Sanity. Richie did leave after that album, but Dee Dee decided to stick for one more year. His last full album with the Ramones is Brain Drain, arguably the band's darkest album. The songs are still fast and some are even catchy, but when only half of the album is about things other than relationship issues, you have a problem.

It all starts with "I Believe in Miracles",  a song about (presumably Dee Dee) being lucky at being alive and touring with band with love at his side. This song is better compared to the trail of mentally draining relationship songs the album will soon dish out, but this track is an ominous sign of what's to come. It reminds me more of "Mental Hell" and "I Wanna Live" in that the tracks sound great, but Joey's vocals and the chords sound confessional and dire.  The song is followed by "Zero Zero UFO", a  fun song about UFO sightings and nothing else.

Nothing on this album is as disturbing as the lyrics to "Don't Bust My Chops". You listen to this song with no prior knowledge of the band's work and still be shocked with its misogyny and harsh language. The Ramones had songs where a girl would meet an unfortunate end (Glad to See You Go, Chain Saw, You're Gonna Kill That Girl), but their love songs far outweigh the number of violent songs. "Don't Bust My Chops" comes across as a song where a man doesn't know how to properly end a relationship and instead lashes out on his significant other in the worst way possible. I think this song even has the most cursing of the Ramones's entire catalog. Joey sings this song with vitriol unlike any songs prior as if he's actually cursing you out of his life. With all it's negativity, this song is quite catchy....it's complicated.

"Punishment Fits the Crime" has Dee Dee singing his last Ramones song (prior to Adios Amigos), and he goes out with a wacky song about...crime, death row, and destiny. Yes, Dee Dee is still writing wacky lyrics but at least he has a Lou Reed-like delivery that works. Pleasant surprise on the album.

"All Screwed Up" is, by now, the typical bloated 4-minute Ramones song, but this one is about, from what I can understand, the harm a girl is doing to her lover and the pains of not having her back. I'm not sure who wrote this one as there's a lyric about hating the music business and how the person admires his woman's hip shaking in the same verse (Dee Dee-style wackiness), but has Joey, Marky (he's back), and Daniel Rey as writers, so take it for what it's worth.

Next is a cover of "Palisades Park", a song about the Palisades Amusement Park that was located in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The amusement park was closed in 1971, about 9 years after this song was first recorded and about 18 years after the Ramones covered it. Therefore, if you ever decide to make a tour of locations referenced in the Ramones discography, be prepared to see condominiums where the park once stood (I think they have a monument in the park's honor.) Back to the cover - it's another fun song with a fantastic circus-sounding riff. Unfortunately (and obviously), that riff will not make it to any live album.

"Pet Sematary" debuts and it was the Ramones most successful song since "Baby, I Love You" and that is a shame as this song sucks on the album. If you want to hear a song that's spooky and atmospheric, try "Garden of Serenity". The movie of the same name gave it the popularity, but get a live version instead as it's upgraded in speed and palatable. After "Pet Sematary", is "Learn to Listen", a song whose riff is 99.5% ripped from "Eat That Rat" from Animal Boy. This is not only a copy of an older song, but its lyrics are so nonsensical and unfocused that it makes "I Wanna Live" feel like Homeric poetry. This may also sound repetitive, but the chorus is catchy. There was one mondegreen for me on "Learn to Listen". I always though Joey said "stay out of Tijuana" instead of the correct "stay out of deep water". I think Tijuana is better.

The last third of this album is Joey based material. If you own the expanded Pleasant Dreams, then you would have listened to "I Can't Get You Out of My Mind", a previously unissued song that made its "debut" on Brain Drain as the awkwardly titled "Can't Get You Outta My Mind". They didn't change "Touring" into "Tourin'" on the next album, so the name change was probably not well thought out. The version on Brain Drain sounds flat, lifeless, boring and forced. The version done 8 years earlier sounds better by leaps.

"Ignorance is Bliss" is a goofy political track, but the riff is fantastic. Joey is straining his voice a bit, but everyone else is in high gear. I think Richie's drumming might have been made for this track as Marky should have sped it up and probably add a fill or two. Next up is "Come Back, Baby", bloated track number two and one where the boredom probably kicked in for everyone as it just drags into tediousness. This could have been done in two minutes instead of four. Finally, the album ends with "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna fight Tonight)" in what could only be a Ramones Christmas song in an album released in May! It's a depressing song that hides itself on the upbeat sound it gives off. What else did you expect on this album? "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire"?

This album is not as good as Halfway to Sanity and marginally better than Animal Boy. Besides the depression almost everyone on the band was in during this album, what dampers it the most is that the sound is flat. There are good riffs, catchy choruses, and the usual crap you come to expect on an album of this era, but it sounds as if it's coming from a filter. Maybe this album (and a few others as well) needs a good remixing to boost it out of its rut. I don't want a raising of volume that will just cripple the sound, but a genuine clean up to fix the muddiness of it all. Overall, its another album in which a few tracks are of interest and the rest is skippable.

NEXT: CJ debuts in the tale of two versions of LOCO LIVE!