Ramones punks founder Tommy dies

[MBTC]

I was never a huge fan, but I didn't care much for the Sex Pistols either. These days I do sometimes find myself enjoying listening to some of that stuff for nostalgic reasons.

I think part of the punk movement was that the very act of sucking at something can be made into art -- I don't think their musicianship was ever one of their selling points, but then there are a lot of good musicians that never achieve success, and a lot of bad musicians that do. Look at all the auto-tuned crap vocals and perfected-via edit stuff that goes into commercial tracks today. Someone can now be a famous musician with no musical talent at all if the planets line up right.

They just had a unique sound that caught on -- maybe not with mainstream listeners but enough that a lot of bands cite the Ramones as one of their early influences, so I have to say that counts for something. I do remember hearing they weren't related back in the early days of MTV I'm pretty sure. If we look at "thrasher" bands like Nirvana they do borrow some things that I don't think can be traced back any further in history than the Ramones or not (I have no idea if Nirvana claimed them as an influence or not but a lot of the Seattle grunge and punk scene did).

I have to say I wouldn't be interested in seeing them in concert even if they were still around. But I'll listen to them occasionally when they get air time on SiriusXM.