Ramones Forever – An International Tribute – Review

Ramones Forever

An International Tribute (Radical)
By Scott Hefflon

Uh, ok… This is not at all what I was expecting… Radical did that “hardcore covers rap classics” thing a year ago, and there were a few really good songs and a whole bunch of songs that hardcore kids might tolerate, but weren’t really of much use to the rest of us. This, uh, is mostly very unlike Radical, and in fact may not make sense to most Americans, much like that tribute Invisible did where bands from the USSR interpreted Pigface tunes. I’ve only heard of three of 23 bands, and those are the ones from the U.S. One of them’s Mark Ramone, another’s Huntingtons (who are basically a Ramones tribute band anyway) and 5¢ Deposit, who Radical inserted cuz they probably signed them and are trying to push them. Everything else is bad, thin, Casio-petting electropoop, the kinda awful shit you imagine if you go to open mic night in some shit part of France where the talented musicians won’t go. Or Belgium. Lots of these bands are from Belgium, for some reason. Wasn’t that the joke in Singles, “We’re huge in Belgium”? Makes sense cuz these bands are awful. Worse than unsigned local bands, no matter where you live. Really. Man, Tears for Fears and The Human League were a long time ago, let it go…

[I refuse to retype all the bands on this thing, cuz no one’s ever heard of any of them and no one will care. Oh, except Daan (from Belgium, of course) who does a slow, bassy, dark and loungy “Somebody Put Something in My Drink” that’s pretty swanky.]
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