For a member of a band to quit and continuously contribute songs to which half of band's final album consists of this ex-member's material, and half of those songs are covers of his previous solo albums, not only speaks about the level of respect and importance this member is to the band, but it also speaks of the position in which the band is in that requires that member's aide.
Adios Amigos is a strong album, but there is an unavoidable shadow that looms on this album - Dee Dee's material. About half of the songs on this album are Dee Dee's, making it the most Dee Dee filled album since Brain Drain. If you put in Mondo Bizarro as the only other post-Dee Dee album filled with original material, it still feels as if Dee Dee never left the band. This would not have been so problematic if it wasn't for two things:
1. Dee Dee's talents had eroded considerably since his early days with the group. Compare the simplicity of Rocket to Russia's "Locket Love" to the abstract writing in Too Tough To Die's "I'm Not Afraid of Life". It appeared that Dee Dee's mental well-being affected his songwriting. Some of my favorite Dee Dee-written tracks on the later albums ("Bop Til' You Drop", "I Wanna Live") have moments where the lyrics are just plain wretched and abstract and/or his focus wasn't strong enough to be on topic for a whole song. Also, Dee Dee had a habit of writing way too many songs about his problems which plagued the later albums, and some of them were also filled with the abstract lyrics. He still had a gem or two in every album, but you would have to sit through the rest of his material to get into any of it.
2. Three of the songs he contributed were already available, and there is almost no difference between those versions and the Ramones covers. It all comes down to whether or not you prefer to listen to Dee Dee sing.
Dee Dee's material, quality-wise, is all over the place. Starting with the worst song on this album, and in all of the Ramones discography, comes "Cretin Family". It's the laziest songwriting and musical arrangement of any Ramones song with the "Psycho Therapy" hook completely ripped off that song and pasted here as if no one would notice, combined with the saddest attempt at remaking an anthem in the vein of "Cretin Hop", "Blitzkrieg Hop", and the already mentioned "Psycho Therapy". It's insulting that they would try to pass this off as something fresh and new when they continuously played those anthems for most of their careers, with fans memorizing every lyric, hook, and chord change. What were they thinking?
In the middle lie "Making Monsters For My Friends", "It's Not For Me to Know", and "Take the Pain Away". "Making Monsters For My Friends" is a goofy song with Dee Dee's abstract lyrics about something that's not entirely based on the title. It's not a bad song, but it is puzzling that they allowed this one on the album. The next two share the "Dee Dee's problems" theme, and it sounds as if they were meant to be on Brain Drain or Halfway to Sanity instead of Adios Amigos.
Dee Dee's best are "The Crusher" and "Born to Die in Berlin". Music-wise, "The Crusher" is not as different compared to the version on the Standing in the Spotlight album, but CJ's enthusiasm and the focused lyrics of wrestling in Madison Square Garden make it a winner. "Born to Die in Berlin" is similar to the "problems" themed songs, but it's a focused song, the band doesn't sound as bored as they did in prior work, and this might sound strange, but this song has a feeling of unfortunate fatalism and the narrator's allowance of it that works well with the album itself. Unlike Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" in which the narrator plays with his fate, "BtDiB"'s narrator accepts the fate but is helpless in attempting to fix them. It's a surprisingly strong effort from Dee Dee at this point and one of the highlights from the album.
To say that this album would have been better without Dee Dee is not entirely wrong, as all but two songs were more of the same material that has appeared on all post Subterranean Jungle albums. Still, you'd have to take into account the rest of the material on the album to get a full picture. Was the band better off writing their own material?
NEXT: PART TWO!!!
