Either/Or: Ramones vs. Stooges vs The Velvet Underground

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I tend to side with Zappa.

That's all we need to know.

What he said. I despise Frank Zappa's music.

My order is:

VU (easily better than the other two, I think)
Stooges (though Raw Power isn't so great)
Ramones (who I also love, make no mistake)

[MorphineCharley]

Man, I'd take almost anyone over Frank Zappa. I love everything VU did except I find White Light / White Heat pretty unlistenable. And I could live my whole life without ever hearing "Heroin" again. I love the Stooges, but they're no VU. And the Ramones are fuckin' great, but talk about your one trick ponies.

[the Classical]

White Light/White Heat is the only Velvets record I can say I truly love

[dave76]

The Stooges.

Funhouse is one of my top ten albums of all time.

[geiginni]

Man, I'd take almost anyone over Frank Zappa.....

...and I'd take Zappa over just about everyone.

Here's the difficulty I have, and I would in some cases describe it as an affliction: I've listened to all these groups extensively throughout my high-school years. At some point what they were doing became reduced by my changing listening mindset so that all I was hearing were the notes of the chords and progression. The energy the band was projecting, the aesthetic of their style and sum of their statement, the timbre and unique characteristic of their sound became irrelavent to how I was listening to the music. The only thing I was hearing were the same damn two to four chords pounded on in the same order again and again and again....

I can't help it. If something repeats sucessively like that more than a few times I'm bored and irritated. It just strikes me as lazy. I know that's not really the case, but that's how it makes me FEEL.

So now I'm in this mindset where most of what I listen to DEMANDS to be listened to - attentively. Everything else is background music and should only function in the background. I am engaged by things that surprise me. Geniunely unique timbres, wide ranging and sudden dynamic changes, complex harmonies and melodic phrasing, and little repetition.

Part of this is my desire for music that holds up to repeated listenings. I can't listen to a Stooges or Ramones album more than once in a great while (like...a few years). In one listening, neigh one song, I feel I've grasped all that is to be had and experienced from what they've done. On the other hand I could take the Zappa catalog and never run out of complex, broadly styled, and diverse music that provides in one sitting interpretations of rock, doo-wop, jazz, fusion, classical, dance, ethnic, avant garde, etc.... The same thing works for me with Debussy, or Bartok. I could listen to La Mer or the Quartet, or Miraculous Mandarin thousands of times without ever being bored by it.

Now of course, there are some exceptions to this...

[run joe, run]

White Light/White Heat The Stooges get a set of steak knives and the Ramones are fired.

Excellent! Now PUT THE COFFEE DOWN.











(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Into the Void]

I don't really like any of these bands either. One trick ponies each, whose tricks have been recycled into a battle cry of musical ignorance by their devotees...
All are CRAP...or at least a big MEH....

I can definitely see The Ramones being one trick ponies, the Stogges maybe, but VU? One trick ponies? In a later post you mention listening to them in high school and it seeming to be "two to four chords pounded out..." VU are much, much more than that, in my opinion at least. But, then again, I find Zappa to be an extraordinarily unfunny mastubatory bore.

[Linus Van Pelt]

I can totally see not liking Velvet Underground. I can't comment too much on the Stooges, as I have only a passing familiarity, but I think the Velvet Underground is much more 'art' than either of the other two. These guys hung around with Andy Warhol and Nico and Basquiat or whomever, and did some drugs and played some music for their art friends and their art friends put on some art shows and stuff and then they had kinky sex and read arty books and I can see it getting tiresome. Personally, I don't care about much of that. In my opinion, without White Light White Heat, VU wins by a nose, with White Light White Heat, they win by a length.

[robert thefamilyghost]

And I could live my whole life without ever hearing "Heroin" again

i could quite conceivably go the rest of my life with "Herion" on a nonstop loop...of course that's just in theory, but i really cannot tire of this song...it's one of those songs that every so often i just HAVE to hear...i go back and forth with it and "Sister Ray" as my favorite VU song...it's one of my all-time favoritest songs ever...and incidentally it has my absolute all-time favorite lyrics...

[Jeremy]

It is simply that I have never, in my whole life, met or come across anybody who (openly) didn't like this band(velvet underground).

I dislike them.

[run joe, run]

It is simply that I have never, in my whole life, met or come across anybody who (openly) didn't like this band(velvet underground).

I dislike them.

How come?

[Noah]

How about they name their albums "Going to Hell" or "Humungous Death Mambo"? That would be cool.



-Noah

[horsewhip]

I think these days, the Stooges are way more overrated than the Ramones. I never really got into the Stooges, most of the time, I found their music to be awkward and just kinda ugly. Which I guess is the appeal, but the Stooges best stuff could never get me off the way "Beat On The Brat," or to a lesser extent "Sister Ray" always could. I do like Raw Power, but that's not really a Stooges album.

For me, I choose Ramones. Velvets close behind, and Stooges bringing up the rear.

[Dylan]

Like, if you didn't like the first album, you might like the droning noise of 'White Light'. And if you didn't like that, you might like the soft intimacy of the third album, or even just Pale Blue Eyes, for example.

I kept hearing about the droney, noisy elements of VU for a long time, and when I finally heard it I felt let down. To me at least, it did not sound droney or noisy. I even got excited about the early tapes, but to no avail. I did not find anything great about it. VU always sounds lazy, to me. The melodies don't really do anything, the lyrics are not interesting, the chord progressions are stock, the voice - ugh. The general atmposphere is pretty uninspiring. I know a lot of people like this band, even friends who I respect, so I'm always giving them a second chance (I think I'm up to their fifth chance by now) but they never deliver for me.

At least not anyone residing in the decent hemisphere of musical taste, which you clearly are.

Thank you again - the respect is mutual, so maybe I'll give them a sixth chance.

[Kate Rev]

Ramones, easy.


If you think otherwise, you think way too much.

[DregsInTheCrowd]

My three favorite American bands. My mind is boggled.

I love every album by every one of these bands. Well, with the exeption of the Ramones because we all know they had some shit albums.

Peerless live bands. All totally unique in their approaches. All blisteringly loud, but nuanced. All of whom explored ugliness, sex, drugs, and cheap thrills lyrically. All of whom couldn't have given a fuck what the outside world thought of their music. All of whom stuck to their guns and did whatever they damn well pleased as long as they existed.

"TV Eye" is my favorite rock song, period. If I can even rank such a thing, that's the one that most frequently pops into my head.

"The Ramones" is the best rock album of the 70s.

The Velvet Underground has the most consistently awesome discography of the 60s.

Damn it, damn it all. The Stooges.

[Bill Swansea]

Stooges.

I think.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Stooges.

No.

I'm not voting.

[2207]

Of the three, I have listened to The Velvet Underground most.

Ramones.

[Antero]

The Velvet Underground was awesome in more directions than either of the others. They had an additional layer of subtlety, and a greater emotional range.

[Kate Rev]

The Velvet Underground was awesome in more directions than either of the others. They had an additional layer of subtlety, and a greater emotional range.

the ramones has an even subtler layer of subtlety

i'm not trying to be funny, it's true.