Acid Eaters

It's a common occurrence in rock 'n' roll to return to your roots with a cover album - Metallica has Garage Inc., Bob Dylan has Good as I Been to You, and John Lennon made Rock 'n' Roll. The Ramones took their favorite old tracks and made Acid Eaters, their tribute to the 60's music that influenced their style. The risk with making cover albums is the temptation of making a note-by-note copy of the original track instead of something akin to your style. The Ramones, having a good hit-to-miss ratio with covers, unfortunately fell into the temptation and copied many of the original songs to a tee.

Take "Journey to the Center of the Mind" as an example: The first few seconds sound like a familiar Ramones production with Marky's drums, Johnny's buzzsaw, and CJ's crunchy bass lines in full gear, but  there's the lead guitar playing a familiar fill followed by a note-by-note performance of Ted Nugent's original solo. The song continues, with CJ singing competently and the band sounding like they normally do, but Nugent's second solo is played and I swear it's almost as pitch perfect as any of Nugent's performances of that song. It's an enjoyable cover but it sounds just like the Amboy Dukes's original with no real changes aside from Johnny's downstrokes.

There are more examples of this form of "covering", but the most horrifying is the inclusion of Pete Townshend to sing the background vocals for "Substitute". It's the same thing he did in the original and he still sounds just as nasally as he did before!What's the point of covering a song if the end product will be nothing more than a replica of the original?

The only bright spot on this album is the cover of Dylan's "My Back Pages" that almost brings the boys back to their deconstructive roots. There's a solo in the middle of the song, but I don't mind it that much as the original doesn't have one and it doesn't sound awful. Did the song need the solo? No. However, this is a late-era Ramones song, therefore nothing is shocking about the solo's inclusion. This song is fast, well-sung, and as close as you're going to get to a classic Ramones cover.

Barring the cover of "My Back Pages", this is an overall disappointing album. Some of the covers are enjoyable, but the end product has the appearance of a cover band instead of the Ramones covering tracks in their own style.

A Faster, Modern Take:
The Ramones play well and everything is well produced, but there's no need for emulations when the originals are easily available and accessible. They might have been hard to find in the early 90s, but you can find all the songs on your favorite MP3 store online and skip most of this album, barring the cover of "My Back Pages".

NEXT UP: ADIOS AMIGOS!!!